BOCA RATON (CBSMiami) – The companionship of a pet makes social distancing and isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic a bit easier to tolerate. But for some people, caring for a pet is difficult which is why researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s College of Nursing in Boca Raton came up with the “purr-fect” solution — a robotic cat.

Many older adults, especially those living with Alzheimer’s disease or related dementias (ADRD), and their caregivers remain alone for extended periods of time, especially now when family members can’t visit older loved ones in senior living facilities.

The interactive robotic cats respond to motion, touch and sound and offer an alternative to traditional pet therapy.

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Look, at first glance there’s  very little to hate on about this article. Old people. Dementia. Helping old people with dementia. Nice subtle barbs at how terrible it is to take care of a cat. This article’s got all the pieces it needs for feel good story of the year! That’s part of the problem here, guys. They, whoever they are, want you to look at all the positives, put on your blinders, and completely overlook the fact that this is a terrible idea. I mean first we’ve got Corona trying to put any dreams we have of grandparents even EXISTING to rest, and now we’ve got robotic cats, basically robotic baby tigers if you think about it. It’s doomsday for old people!

Not only that, but think about the spin cycle they’re trying to put us in! 

Our old people have never been more vulnerable, and yet you want us to put a robot in the room with them. You want us to encourage them to love a robot, to trust a robot! I mean if that’s not what the robots want then I don’t know what to think. (There’s an alternative argument where you say all robots want is to be loved and then I say but that makes this blog less funny and then you say Keegs just think about it and then I say wow we’ve got a pitch for the next great Pixar film “Edith and The Robotic Cat” and then we become best friends.)

We’re also overlooking the technical issues that a robotic cat could suffer from. What happens when the thing runs out of batteries? I’ve had a front row seat trying to teach grandpa to use Zoom. Now, does my grandpa have dementia? No, but has he become far more capable of homicide since we tried to show him where the chat window was? Hard yes. So either the robotic cats kill our grandparents, or they turn our grandparents into killers. I don’t know what’s worse, but I know it’s a terrible idea and I far prefer my hypothetical (officially copyrighted) Pixar movie.