Illustration: Chen Xia/Global Times

 During the National Day holiday, quite a few posts on Chinese social media platforms about people walking mechanical dogs went viral. For many pet lovers, they now have a new choice - mechanical dogs. Mechanical dogs are still far from replacing the emotional companionship brought by real pets, but they do not need to eat food and do not leave a mess. They can be described as a "well-behaved pet." They seem to have lots of advantages, and have quickly become popular among young people. Also, there are discussions that - with the upgrade of artificial intelligence - home robots may evolve from "mechanical pets" to smarter "robot girlfriends or boyfriends" with emotional interaction with humans in the future. However, discussing the entry of robots into human life is not a simple topic. As robots are increasingly involved in our daily lives, people should not only prepare to embrace robots but also learn and adapt to a future life in harmony with these new intelligent beings and creatures, and improve today's legal framework to protect individuals and consumers.