Talking toys have become such a hit that some elderly people have embraced them as substitutes for the children who have grown old and deserted entire neighborhoods in the rapidly greying country. The Yumel doll, which looks like a baby boy and has a vocabulary of 1,200 phrases, is billed as a "healing partner" for the elderly and goes on the market Thursday at a price of 8,500 yen (80 dollars).

Can dolls really substitute all of us? These dolls have been programmed to perform many human acts. Heck they even respond to your behavior! It's bad enough that robots are taking over our jobs, now if these guys can add emotional support, then yes my friend, the day is not too far behind when we will no longer need ourselves! AI? Was that the name of the movie where a couple adopts a robot kid? Oh that movie sucked big time! But reading this article somehow made me think of that.

It is sad though, that people should resort to dolls just to compensate the void caused by kids leaving them...