I’m so tired, and there are so many things happening. Days like today have become the norm in this last, lost year; there is a tragedy that happens every second of every day, and if you are lucky enough to be outside the blast radius, you can only see through a screen what is happening. Just last night, Texas Senator Ted Cruz decided to embark on a family trip to Cancún, as large parts of his state drink without power or drinking water amid a historic freezing point. He’s on his way back now, after being shamed online for his surprisingly cruel choice.
That was the first thing I saw this morning. It was the second.
This funky little robot’s name is Nicobo, and it was created by Panasonic for companionship. It is loosely feline; it claps. It can do no more than swing its head and tail and blink its unpleasant digital eyes. It can kind of talk. And no, if you’re interested, you can not buy it.
As Gizmodo reportedly, Panasonic plans to make only a few hundred Nicobo units; it made them available for pre-order via its own crowdfunding platform, and they were all claimed from six hours after the launch of the campaign. (Nicobo costs about $ 360.) If you manage to get your hands on one, you’re likely to pay around $ 10 a month to get things like software updates.
I do not know why I say this to you. It’s not like you can buy this robot, which is cute in its own way. Nor is it like learning about a little Japanese robot that will change your life or even ward off existential despair for more than the time it takes to get to this paragraph in this article.
Perhaps here is a lesson, situated between the composition of the logic of production and the reality of widespread human suffering. Nicobo was created by Panasonic in collaboration with robotics researchers from Toyohashi University of Technology as a companion – as a technological ointment for atomization, capitalist alienation and good old-fashioned loneliness. After a year of drastically less human touch, we once again have a robotic tool for a gaping psychological wound. I think it’s cuter than a Zoom call?