Buying a Robot Cat and Falling into the Weird World of Animal-Robot Research

I Bought a Robot Cat for My Rabbit — and Fell Into the Weird World of Animal-Robot Research What began as a TikTok experiment with my rabbit led me into a strange world of cyborg cockroaches, imposter fish, and the ethics of care. By: Ericka Johnson A↑ A↓ Off Bright Dark Blues Gray BeeLine Reader uses subtle color gradients to help you read more efficiently. For a while, as part of a research project on care robots in Sweden, I had Paro the seal in my house. I had borrowed Paro from a roboticist colleague, and the seal had a longer-than-planned layover with me because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Neighborhood children were often around and showed fleeting interest in the robot. Our free-range rabbit in the house, Topsey, was wholly unimpressed (“Topsey is sad because we are paying too much attention to the robot,” said one of the more empathetic children). I don’t think Topsey felt bad about the very small amounts of attention the robot was getting. I suspect that at times, Tops ... Read full article.