Columbus & AI Pets

Was Columbus a hero or villian? Dangerous Dave talks about a poll that says more people think hero than villian. Plus, AI may be replacing our pets with the new "Moflin".

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is uber in the den with Dangerous Day. Well,
a new Columbus Day poll found we're more likely to
say we should celebrate it. Forty three percent of Americans approved,
were just twenty three percent of Americans disapprove. The other
third said they didn't know or they really didn't care.
Here's some Columbus Day stats. Sixty nine percent of people

(00:20):
agree it's an important part of American history. Is hard
to argue that he didn't play a part. But whether
we're split on whether he was a hero or a villain.
Most popular answer was neither or both. It's kind of complicated,
I guess thirty five percent said hero, though twenty percent
said villain. Around one in four Americans think that we
what we learned in school maybe wasn't completely true about Columbus,

(00:42):
And twenty five percent of people think he was the
first explorer to reach North America. The Vikings actually had
a settlement in Canada almost five centuries earlier. And here's
another one. People were asked who else might have landed
in America before Columbus in fourteen ninety two, Six percent
said ancient Greeks, five percent said Romans. However, there's no
evidence that either of them did land anywhere in the

(01:05):
Americas Deeper in the two Well, you better look out,
dogs and cats. AI is coming for your job. The
electronics brand Cassio released an AI pet Mofflin. It's kind
of like Tamagatchi from the nineties, but way creepier. Looks
like a guinea pig without legs, has eyes but no
limbs for some reason, and you will want one because
it's pretty cute. Unlike previous robot pets, it's not meant

(01:28):
to be a toy. They're marketing it as a mental
health companion meant to comfort you. It's got built in
AI that helps develop its own simulated personality depending upon
how you react with that. Over the time, it learns
to recognize you, just like a real pet does. They
don't run, jump, or move very much, just sort of squirm,
but they're pretty lifelike, supposed to simulate a pet snuggling you.

(01:50):
They originally debuted at the Consumer Electric Show in Vegas
in twenty twenty one, but now they're ready for prime time.
They go on sale in Japan on November seventh. It's
not clear if they plan to sell them in the US,
but I would imagine they would. You can pre order
them right now in Japan for about four hundred bucks,
so they're not cheap, but you won't have to be
rich to own one. For an extra forty four dollars
a year, there's also a subscription service called Club Moufflin,

(02:14):
comes with discounts on repairs and cleanings and even a
full fur replacement if you need it. Yeah, a full
fur replacement. Our animals do that all the time, because
I swear to God, I'm cleaning up all the fur
off all the furnitures daily. Tune again for another episode
of Deeper in the Den with Dangerous Dave light Year.