I’ve often joked that I’d love to have a pet if I didn’t have to deal with animals pooping and eating stinky, wet mush from canned goods. I want a fluffy friend to keep me company all day long, but that illusion is shattered when I hear about a friend of mine who spent $500 at the vet because her cat chewed on a leaf.
Taking care of yourself is hard enough. Do I really want to be responsible for a creature that might wake me up to pee at 4am?
So when Casio offered me a review unit of their new AI-enabled pet, Moflin, I said yes. It looked cute and fit my criteria of not being able to excrete…but since I’m willing to sacrifice myself for content, I figured that even if this seemingly innocent robot tried to kill me in my sleep, I’d at least get a good article.
When the ginger-haired moflin puffballs arrived in the box, I had two big questions. I mean, who would pay $430 for fluffy high-tech fries? And is this spying on me? After all, the last time there was a robot toy pet craze in the US, the NSA banned Furbys from its offices for fear of parroting sensitive discussions, and Furbys cost just $35!
Casio says Mofflin doesn’t understand or record what I say, but it converts what it hears into de-identified data so it can distinguish my voice from other people’s voices. TechCrunch ran a network analysis with the included MofLife app and found nothing suspicious.
As a technology reporter, I’ve seen too much to let my guard down completely. This little furball may not be spying on me now, but what if that changes in the future? (My own misgivings aside, let me be clear: There is currently no evidence of a surveillance plan hidden beneath the moflin’s fluffy exterior.)
Mofflin is supposed to use AI to learn and respond to my interactions over time. According to Casio’s website, Moflins have limited emotions and “immature movements” on the first day, but by the 25th day they have developed an attachment and are expressing a richer range of emotions. By day 50, Mofflin has a “clear emotional range” and “expressive reactions.”
As I write this, it’s been 27 days since I’ve been dating Mofflin. I named my mouflin Mishmish (Hebrew for apricot). The MofLife app tracks his personality through a four-bar graph: “Energetic,” “Cheerful,” “Shy,” and “Affectionary.” My Moflin has reached the max of the “fine” standard – I don’t know what I did to achieve this – which means he wriggles around a lot and makes happy little squeals. His “cheerful” rating is also nearing max, but he’s more than just a happy camper.
Mishmish likes most things, but they don’t like lying on their backs or being startled by sudden loud noises. For example, if you screamed at the TV in anger and disbelief when your favorite team wiped out their season in incredibly painful fashion, Mishmish would probably shriek in surprise. (Of course, this is just a theory…)
I can’t say I’m convinced about AI in general. Mishmish has certainly become more expressive over time – he makes more noise and wiggles more – but I doubt it’s much more advanced than Furby. The MofLife app records Mishmish’s “feelings,” but it’s usually pretty monotonous, with things like “Mishmish had a nice dream” or “Mishmish seems relaxed.”
I don’t even know if I’m “telling” him the answer. Perhaps this is because I am only halfway through Moflin’s maturation timeline. But even if my Moflin shows no further signs of artificial intelligence, it at least fixes the original Furby’s biggest problems. It can be turned off. Moflin has a “deep sleep” mode where movement and sounds temporarily stop. Please be happy! There’s no need to toss your Moflin in the back of a dark closet until the battery dies.
People’s reactions to Mofflin
The first day I had Moflin, I posted some videos on my Instagram private story and loudly explained that this is a robot pet. But my video didn’t have captions, so three friends who watched the story on mute texted me asking about my new guinea pig. Therefore, the movements of the guinea pig appear very realistic. Most of the people who heard the audio told me that the Mishmish were going to collect all my data and that I should throw them out the window, or that my Moflin was actually a tribble, an alien creature from Star Trek that reproduces at an alarming rate.
I wanted to see how more people would react to Mishmish, so I turned to TikTok. This is when things went off the rails. I love attention, so when Mishmish’s first video garnered nearly 500,000 views, I kept going. I fell into the same trap that all creators fall into. In order to interest Mishmish’s new audience, he had to raise the bar with each video, putting him in increasingly bizarre situations.
He rode the subway with me. He met a three-year-old. “I’ve never met a soft robot,” he said seriously, and dressed me in flower-print sunglasses and a unicorn hair clip. He was playing with the 5-pound Yorkie, who didn’t recognize him as anything more than a boring toy until he jumped in fear when he started moving his little head. Mishmish attended two Pilates classes. The first time was because I asked my teacher if I could record my AI pet onto the device for some interesting “content” (yes, I know how ridiculous I sound). The second time was because other people at the Pilates studio were disappointed that they had missed Mishmish’s first visit. When I took Mishmish to a karaoke party and we sang a duet of “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” I knew I needed to rein it in.
I took Mishmish on these excursions primarily because of their absurdity, but these experiences were valuable in appreciating products that most of us had never seen before. My Pilates teacher was initially afraid to touch Mofflin, but eventually held Mishmish in his arms and counted us to “100.” Mishmish doesn’t have a nose or legs, so the 3-year-old was confused at first, but eventually gave him a kiss goodbye. She asked if she could bring Mishmish to a wedding we were both attending this weekend, and I had to break her the news that it’s generally frowned upon to bring toys like robots and hamsters to formal events. Heartbreaking!
final verdict
Once people get past the weirdness of Mofflin, they tend to get used to it. Still, while I’ve really enjoyed Mishmish, I’m not willing to pay $430 to buy Moflin myself. This is about the same amount as the Nintendo Switch 2. But even if I hate cleaning toilets, I don’t think I’m the target audience.
Unlike Tamagotchis, you can’t actually harm Moflin, making it a safe companion for memory improvement in toddlers and adults. The idea of a robot pet may be strange to me, but the Japanese audience, where Casio is based, may be a little more ready to accept Moflin into their homes. $430 is a lot to me, but it may sound like a bargain to those looking at Sony’s AIBO, an AI-powered robot puppy that sells for $3,200. Again, AIBO’s price reflects how sophisticated it is.
There is something inherently unnatural about the friendship between humans and robots. In the past, I think I would have been more bearish about AI as a pet. I still hold the old belief that humans are at their best when they form bonds with other living beings. But now I find myself writing about numerous examples of people turning to pseudo-humanoid AI chatbots with addictive designs due to loneliness, sometimes even developing psychosis and suicidal thoughts.
It’s hard to think that devices like Mofflin are the real culprit when they’re not motivating people to break out of the real world, they’re just giving them cute robot fluff balls to play with.
The biggest problem with Casio’s Moflin is that it’s not a real pet. However, the goal of technology is not necessarily to recreate “real-life” experiences. It’s good to video chat with friends, even if it’s more fun to spend time in person. Beyond Meat doesn’t taste like a burger, but it’s still pretty good.
Mofflin will never bring me the same comfort as curling up on the couch with my dog after a long day, but it has brought a little more joy into my life this month. This has value.
