Wait. I guess it mimics some actions of a puppy, and I imagine it can be entertaining for a few hours. Then you get used to it, and you start seeing the repeating patterns. For how long can you find entertaining a robot dog that pretends to scratch its ear, for no reason in the world and without actually even coming close to touch it with its paw?
>You're approaching this too much from an engineer's POV
I don't agree with this. If anything, I am approaching it from a spiritual POV when I say that a normal person cannot love an object like you can love a dog.
If that was the case, people probably wouldn't be holding funerals for their v1 Aibos, and there wouldn't be an active repair scene for them. They probably also wouldn't have made a v2. This thing is explicitly designed to trick your "is this a living being" circuitry.
Human beings can get attached to anything, regardless of its utility.
This thing mimics the actions of a puppy, and it stays a puppy forever.
Of course people would get attached to it, and in selling that attachment, there is value.
You're approaching this too much from an engineer's POV