Since I read Valentino Braitenbergs book on artificial creatures in the mid 90ies, I am fascinated by the topic. Of course several of my interests meet in that field: On one side my interest for Isaac Asimov who basically invented robot stories and on the other side my professional interest in artificial intelligence.
Much happend since the publication of Braitenbergs book: There is a quite sophisticated artificial life form commercially available - Pleo.
My Pleo is named Rapunzel and already had a cameo apperance in an AI lecture at Saarland University.
To find out more about this device could become a very interesting topic for the next few years.
My cats however remain sceptical...