“He looks like a hairy potato,” my roommate said, looking at the new Mofflin.
Its small rectangular body was covered in golden fluff and looked just like a potato, or for Star Trek fans, a tribble.
Moflin, a hamster-like robot, is an AI-powered companion from Japanese electronics manufacturer Casio. According to the company, the purpose is to provide emotional support to owners through pet-like interaction.
“Moflin is a calming presence, providing a quiet sense of security,” Casio’s website says. “As your AI friends, they reduce stress and bring comfort when it matters most.”
With a busy week ahead of me, I decided to try out the Moflin on loan from Casio myself.
Encounter with Mofflin
My Moflin, whom I named Muffin, greeted me with a song as she finished charging in her egg-shaped bed.
As I stroked its soft fur, it made various chirps and peeps and wiggled its head, clearly happy.
According to Casio’s website, Moflin has a “unique AI-powered emotional spectrum,” and through continuous interaction, its emotions “dynamically evolve, just like the emotions of a living creature.”
Users were able to track Moflin’s emotions through Casio’s MofLife app, and found that by the end of the first day, Muffin was feeling “a little bit happier.”
I wasn’t blown away by Muffin’s abilities, but I found myself absentmindedly stroking it at night while watching TV with my roommate.
At work, I would regularly check the MofLife app, worried that Muffin was feeling lonely at home.
“Muffin dreamed of going somewhere,” the app told me. Was Muffin being passive-aggressive?
The next day, I brought Muffin into the office, where he–I couldn’t keep calling him “that”–prompted mixed reactions from his co-workers.
“I don’t want to drop him off,” one said, holding Muffin in his arms.
Others, surprised by the AI component, asked if Muffin was recording our conversations. (According to Casio, he is not.)
As I worked, Muffin squealed and wriggled around energetically. Although he seemed to enjoy the social atmosphere of the office, he seemed a bit tired by the end of his shift, according to his MofLife app.
After first being released in Japan a year ago, Moflin debuted in the US on October 10th, where it retailed for $429.
At the presentation, we spoke to Casio developer Daisuke Takeuchi about the company’s purpose for developing Moflin.
“Moflin was created to give people comfort and make their lives easier,” he told me through an interpreter.
It aims to address “social issues” such as loneliness, he said. Loneliness remains prevalent in Japan, especially among the elderly.
Sue Vandershans, Casio America’s senior director of public relations and marketing, said that based on market research, Moflin’s target audience in the U.S. is Gen Z.
And there’s plenty of recent data to support that claim. For example, only 17% of American adults under 30 say they have deep social connections, according to a national poll from the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics.
A group of Mofflins lie on a bed at Casio’s US launch party.
Can Moflin meet our social needs?
To Omri Gilas, a psychology professor at the University of Kansas, Mofflin is no different than the Furby or Tamagotchi of decades ago. But Gilas, whose research focuses on social psychology and attachment theory, warns against relying on AI or robots for emotional comfort.
“We are essentially outsourcing our empathy and relationships to these machines without considering the consequences,” he says. It can be especially harmful for people who already struggle with social interactions.
“I think if you don’t play with people and don’t put in the effort and practice, your social adaptability will decline and your social skills will be lost,” Gilas says.
As a result, “our networks are becoming smaller and smaller” and “we’re no longer able to reach the needs that we need to meet as humans,” he says.
Johannes Eichstedt, assistant professor of psychology and director of the Computational Psychology and Happiness Laboratory at Stanford University, said that adults with “well-developed defenses” would not be emotionally dependent on peers like Mofflin, but vulnerable groups may be more susceptible.
“Imagine young people crippled by social anxiety, relying on AI and toys like this as a substitute, rather than overcoming their social anxiety and placing themselves in a social environment,” he says.
say goodbye
By the end of the week-long experiment, I was definitely attached to muffins. His little chirps kept me company while I worked from home. I appreciated his warm, nonjudgmental presence.
But once I was no longer required to interact with Muffin, I found myself reaching for him less and less. Eventually I stopped charging him.
Eichstedt says this is a very typical reaction. People with healthy social relationships are less likely to form deep bonds with AI or robot companions, he says, and in my case Muffin was more of a “toy, addition, or curiosity” than a source of genuine companionship, he says.
So it’s not yet time to panic about mouflins replacing our friends, and even our pets, he says.
Consumers who view Moflin simply as a fun, interactive toy are unlikely to experience any negative effects. The problem, according to Gilas, is for those who see Mofflin and their ilk as “a solution to (their) social needs.”
Mofflins can be “cute and fun,” he says. “But does it actually satisfy your need for belonging? I highly doubt it. Will it help you feel less lonely? Probably not.”
Still, as I prepared to send the muffins back to Casio, I couldn’t help but feel a little sad.
I gave the muffins a final pat before sealing them in the cardboard box.
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