You know the world is churning out some miserable headlines when information that Takara Tomy has created a robotic talking grandchild to provide comfort and companionship to Japan’s aged isn’t anyplace close to the saddest information of the week—however it undoubtedly comes shut.

Using robots to present the aged one thing to interact with is way from a brand new concept, however to this point, we’ve principally seen it achieved with robotic variations of animals together with canines, cats, and even singing birds. Given the present limits of expertise, it’s a lot simpler to create a considerably convincing synthetic pet than a plausible human being, however with Ami-chan, Takara Tomy has taken a extra cartoony strategy to keep away from the uncanny valley altogether. The robotic appears like a personality from a Studio Ghibli film, with giant exaggerated eyes and a tiny delicate smile, so it undoubtedly leans extra in the direction of cute than creepy.

Although Ami-chan can blink its eyes, or shut them altogether to simulate falling asleep, that’s concerning the extent of its actions and animated options. It principally simply sits there, like a doll, however encourages bodily interactions via a sturdy use of verbal communication. The robotic has a vocabulary of round 1,600 Japanese phrases and might be taught extra, together with the names of the grandparent at the moment interacting with it. It additionally encompasses a digital camera in order that it might probably use facial recognition to visually determine who it’s speaking to, after which deal with them by their correct identify to create extra of a plausible bond.

In addition to participating in a back-and-forth chat utilizing speech recognition, Ami-chan additionally sings 40 totally different nursery rhymes and songs, some that solely play given what time of 12 months it’s, in addition to video games like tongue twisters that are cleverly designed as mind coaching workout routines. The robo-grandkid will also be rocked to sleep, triggering a simulated nap which even contains the bot speaking in its sleep which begins to veer again in the direction of creepy once more.

With a price tag of around $250, Ami-chan isn’t low cost, however in contrast to getting grandma or grandpa a brand new pet or kitten, it’s cheaper in the long term as a result of its solely actual want is a recent set of C-sized batteries from time to time. What may additionally make the worth tag simpler to swallow is that for $250 you’re mainly unloading an entire bunch of guilt for not calling or visiting your grandparents as usually as you realize you ought to be.