this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2026
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You really need to see just how bad these things are:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJlxkLawZrw
It's a slightly animatronic mannequin. They're so garbage. This is what they brought to CES to show off, like they're proud of it. Tickle Me Elmo was more life-like.
Right before the AI boom really started to take off there was a robot "companion" named Moxie that I thought struck exactly the right balance - it was nowhere near the uncanny valley, staying firmly on the cute robot side, and it used a projected cartoon face that was simple but expressive. Unfortunately the company's timing was rather poor, they went out of business right before the AI back end would have been able to make full use of an avatar like this. I'd love to see another version of this approach.
It's the robot from M3GAN 2.0?
Yup. IIRC they paid the movie's producers for the product placement, and then the company went under before the movie's release date. So it ended up advertising a defunct product. But at least it fit perfectly into the movie's plot.