But what Wired has written about is a step up from that. A huge step.

Meet the Cybraphon. This incredible robot plays music all of the time. Looking like something out of a Neal Stephenson fever-dream, the Cybraphon plays its choice of pre-programmed tracks. While the tracks themselves might be pre-programmed, the Cybraphon chooses which tracks to play based on its mood.

What affects its mood you ask? Well, the Cybraphon searches the Internet for mentions of itself. It looks at the number of Facebook fans and Twitter followers it has. The more it finds, the happier it is. It announces its mood on its Twitter feed.

As of this writing it appears almost suicidal with its last several moods being “gloom”, “dejection”, “desolation”, “dismay”, and “indifference”.

Hopefully it finds this article and cheers up a bit.

So this incredible robot will play happy music when it is in a good mood and sad dirges when it is in a state of despair.

You can check out a demo of its music below.

Cybraphon Demo Song from Cybraphon on Vimeo.

Now, you might be sitting there thinking, “Sure, this is cool, but what does it mean?”

It means that it is possible to program a very basic emotion into a computer and then have it react outwardly to that emotion, in this case in the form of music and Tweets. At what point to more complex emotions start to arise? Is it now possible to program “feelings” into machines?

At this point we know that very basic emotions can be “programmed” – the trick is now to add more complexity to these emotions and reactions to those emotions.

The Cybraphon, besides being a lot of fun, is another step closer to that being a reality.