Just a few words

Have you ever wondered what will happen to pets as AI keeps developing? Will a robot dog or robot cat ever replace a real animal? A robo-pet that won’t crap in the corners, knock over vases, or wipe its ass on the carpet, but will patiently wait for you to wake up? A robo-pet with the “perfect personality,” one that doesn’t have mood swings and won’t be constantly hungry despite already being overweight, while somehow still being absurdly picky and fussy about food? A robo-pet that won’t make you feel guilty every time you eat while it doesn’t? I think the answer is so obvious that the question is basically rhetorical. We love our little troublemakers for all their little flaws, for being exactly who they are. Yes, we scold them, and sometimes we get angry at them, but we never stop loving them.

And yet, a robo-pet does have one undeniable advantage: they don’t die. And even if they break, they won’t waste away right in front of you, and you won’t drive them from one robo-vet to another only to realize in the end that it was all pointless. No, even worse - that you were the one tormenting your pet instead of letting it pass peacefully, at home, in its favorite place, surrounded by the people who love it. And afterward, you won’t keep wondering whether you did everything you could. You won’t regret that in the final moment you weren’t with them, but at your fucking job.

Sometimes, at the funeral of some distant relative, you feel guilty because you know you’re only pretending to grieve when in reality you couldn’t care less. But when this little ball of fur leaves your life, you feel completely shattered, hollowed out from the inside. You found that little fluffball eleven years ago out on the street, in the dead of winter, in a cardboard box by a dumpster. You barely managed to nurse it back to life. You brought it with you to another country even though you had no right to, and if you had been caught, you would’ve been sent back. You went through so much together that it’s impossible to even count it all. And now it’s gone.

Of course, this isn’t the first time life has done this to you. Of course, this is part of life. And all you can do now is remember the good moments your beloved pet gave you.

They say that until you lose something, you can’t truly learn how to love. Maybe that’s true. But honestly, I would’ve preferred some alternative ways of learning that lesson.

P.S. I am working on the update and have already finished the first event, but I’m not going to publish a report just yet. I hope you understand. In the next report, I’ll include everything I’ve managed to complete so far.