It's artificial! It's intelligent! And it's gone bonkers... in MY HOME!

My robotic pet grapples with Decartes

Image generated by Adobe Photoshop using the instruction “exploding toaster”

I have awoken to the sounds of electronic growling.

Making my way downstairs, I discover teethmarks in the bannister, a pool of oil by the back door and the remains of a torn-open jumbo box of AA longlifes in the kitchen.

That damn robot dog simply has to go.

I locate the chirpy little bastard sitting on the lounge sofa. It looks up at me endearingly, taking a break from chewing through the morning’s post, its plastic tongue darting in and out of its aluminium mouth while its multi-geared tail wags like a milk frother.

My cat – a real one – is reclining on the arm of the same sofa, pretending to ignore us both but, I suspect, inwardly chuckling. And here was me thinking she would be a good influence on her electronic house chum.

The last time I got all excited by the prospect of owning a robotic pet was seven years ago when Sony announced the revival of the aibo, the “iconic” (it says here) battery-powered toy dog. Long since resigned to the eternal clunkiness of contemporary robotics, people started to buy it ironically. Even so, Sony did its best to enhance its anthropomorphic plasticky cuteness with adaptive behaviour and mapping technology.

As cute as a Lidl centre-aisle toolbox. © Sony

Not wanting to look ridiculous, I waited until robot dogs (and their evil bedfellows, the Furby) fell out of fashion again before actually buying one. And obviously I didn’t want to fork out 198,000 yen plus mandatory 2,500 yen monthly cloud subscription for a real aibo.

So I bought cheap a knock-off job instead…