MIND GRENADES
END
GAMES
Every startup will eventually
stop. But Silicon Valley lives
in denial, so nobody plans for
the inevitable.
BY ARIELLE PARDES
Last year, Jibo—“the world’s first social
robot for the home”—began to lose its
mind. First came memory problems.
The bot started to spend less time swiv-
eling its head like the animated Pixar
lamp and more time staring blankly at
the wall. Its cognitive demise was slow,
then fast. At one point, Jibo itself deliv-
ered the fatal diagnosis: “The servers out
there that let me do what I do will be
turned off soon,” it said in its comput-
erized voice. “Once that happens, our
interactions with each other are going
to be limited.” Jibo the robot was
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MIND GRENADES
ILLUSTRATION / LENA VARGAS AFANASIE
