I hate my AI pet with every fiber of my being – The Verge

After a few weeks living with Casio’s AI-powered pet, Moflin, I finally understand why my mother hated my Furby so much. The fuzzy, guinea-pig-adjacent puffball fits snugly in the palm of my hand. It’s undeniably cute, in a weird kind of way, but the second it starts to squeak or twitch, I am hit with an overwhelming desire to hurl it as far as I can.

My antipathy surprises me. By any metric, I am the exact kind of person Moflin was made for: I long for the companionship of a pet, but can’t own one thanks to a mixture of lifestyle, allergies, a small London flat, and a broadly irresponsible temperament that makes caring for another living thing a questionable idea. I could also do with the “calming presence” advertised.

Casio is very clear that Moflin is not a toy, though perhaps that is also clear from the $429 price tag. Rather, it is positioned as a sophisticated “smart companion powered by AI, with emotions like a living creature” — the illusion of companionship without the responsibilities. The idea is that you will interact with it over time and it will “grow” alongside you, developing a personality shaped by how you treat it. The robot is part of a growing mini-industry of machines built with no other purpose than to keep us company. The sector has proven particularly popular in countries like South Korea and Japan (where Moflin has sold out), fueled in part by a loneliness crisis that’s hit older populations especially hard.

Unboxing Moflin felt less like meeting a pet and more like unwrapping a paperweight wrapped in a bronze wig. In a way, that’s exactly what it was: a hard white core of motors, sensors, and plastic, clad in the illusion of fur and two beady eyes that are the robot’s only facial features (a deliberate design choice it seems, perhaps to keep Moflin from wandering into uncanny valley territory). There was also a charging pod, which Casio says is “designed to feel natural and alive,” but read more like a giant gray avocado to me.

The robot takes about three and a half hours to charge fully. Casio says this is good for about five hours of use, though “use” is a generous term for what Moflin actually does: It doesn’t walk or follow you, just wiggles and whines in response to touch, sound, movement, and light. Its first chirp when I picked it up was cute, but then the motor noise kicked in, an audible mechanical whir every time it moved its head, instantly shattering the illusion. Nevertheless, I named it Kevin.

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