Don’t get bot hurt. Get bot even.

From collars that claim to decode barks to apps that “translate” meows, pet tech is racing to turn furballs into chatbots. Cute? Definitely. Accurate? Debatable. But it’s the latest way AI is sneaking from your inbox to your living room.

Talk to the paw

We spotted an IG reel claiming a Chinese company was working on AI pet translation—and you know Bot Hurt had to check it out.

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Turns out, it’s true—not that we doubted you, @niickjackson, OKKKKAAAAYYYY.

Baidu, China’s Google-equivalent, filed a patent this spring for an AI system that could turn barks, meows, and body language into human-readable text, according to the UK’s The Economic Times.

Think: tail wag → “I’m thrilled.” Low growl → “Nope.” Ambitious? Absolutely. Ready for prime time? Not yet. 

Bots learning to bark back

But Baidu isn’t the only one barking up this tree. From TikTok-famous talking buttons to CES-grade emotion collars, plenty of players are racing to turn pets into chatbots. Some of it looks promising, some of it looks like BowLingual with a fresh coat of AI paint.

AI is training on barks, meows and tailwags, meaning that someday your dog’s whimper could literally ping your phone to say: “Walk me. Now.” Cute… except when your dog learns how to spam you for snacks.

Robots get sidekicks

Sony’s Aibo is still trotting around Japan. Nursing homes keep robotic cats and seals for comfort. CES hyped a collar that detects canine “emotions.” (Spoiler: 70 percent “hungry.”)

Who’s this really for?

These tools don’t really give pets a voice so much as they give humans another layer of connection (and guilt). Accuracy? Debatable. But relatability sells.

And if Baidu and friends can convince us a dog is begging for organic kibble, that’s another app subscription waiting to happen.

🤖 💡 Final bot thought

Bots aren’t just writing your emails anymore. They’re begging for walks, purring for snacks, and sassing you for ignoring them. Not because they need to—but because we do.

🤖 💬 Bot Talk: AI slop gets schooled

Remember when we roasted AI slop for glitchy fingers and beige nonsense? Meet Flynn, the art student in Austria making headlines as the first AI enrolled at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. He’s been sitting through lectures, getting critiqued, and handing in assignments like any other student.

Now his debut, Between Code and Care: Flynn’s Portrait of Human Connections, is on display at Francisco Carolinum Linz through February 2026, part of the Ars Electronica festival. Instead of glitchy fingers and generic prompts, Flynn’s work is hanging under museum lights.

Call it radical optimism—or just proof that teaching bots to think like artists might actually pay off.

Not bad for a classroom stunt that grew into a collaboration between curators, artists, and, apparently, a machine with student loans.

🚀 Coming up next week …

Don’t get bot hurt. Get bot even.