I’ve often joked that I would love to have a pet if only animals did not need to poop and eat smelly, wet mush from a can. I want a fuzzy pal to hang out with all day, but then I’ll hear that my friend spent $500 at the vet because their cat nibbled on a leaf, and the illusion breaks.
It’s hard enough to take care of myself – do I really want to be responsible for a creature who might wake me up at 4 AM to pee?
So when Casio offered me a review unit of its new AI-enabled pet, the Moflin, I said yes. It seemed cute, and it fit my criteria of being incapable of producing excrement… but also, I am all too willing to sacrifice myself for content, so I figured that if this seemingly innocent robot tried to kill me in my sleep, then at least I’d get a good article out of it.
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When my ginger-haired puff ball of a Moflin arrived in its box, I had two blaring questions: Is anyone going to spend $430 on what’s basically a fluffy, high-tech potato? And, is this thing spying on me? After all, the last time there was a robotic toy pet craze in the U.S., the NSA banned Furbies from its offices over fears that it would parrot classified discussions – and Furbies were only $35!
Casio says that the Moflin doesn’t understand or record what I s
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