First Japan invented the cell phone novel. Now comes the cell phone robot buddy.

TOKYO (AFP) - For those who feel a bit lonely just talking on the phone, a Japanese company is offering a cellphone that turns into a robot buddy ready to chat. Softbank Mobile Corp.'s new mobile line looks like a small humanoid with attachable arms and legs, with the screen showing various faces.

Not only do the cells come with Optimus Prime-type limbs, they're equipped with artificial intelligence that learns their owner's habits. "If the user calls a particular person many times, a text phrase such as 'You're calling her often these days, aren't you?' might appear coming out of the face's mouth." Humans can then answer by typing Yes or No.

It all sounds so... I was going to say creepy, but for the sake of argument let's go with innocent. Hypothetical question: What happens if a lonesome commuter downloads a cell phone novel onto her robot? Love Sky, the cell phone novel that became Japan's number one best seller last year, is "A tear-jerker featuring adolescent sex, rape, pregnancy and a fatal disease — the genre’s sine qua non." It captures "the young generation’s attitude, its verbal tics and the cellphone’s omnipresence."

And when the cell robot gets all its knowledge about human behavior from melodramatic adolescent novels? What will its AI make of us?

Says the manufacturer: "Your mobile would grow into a buddy different from others that is unique in the world."

Yeah, right. Your nosy, omnipresent buddy: different and unique and convinced by trashy cell phone fiction that humans are disease-ridden nymphos.

I'm sure the manufacturer will insist that the robot buddies are friendly. But that's what everybody said about the cyborgs, until the day Skynet became self-aware and Schwarzenegger crashed through the time portal to hunt down Sarah Connor.

Think I'll go read Jane Austen and wait for Armageddon.

(Thanks to Susan Daly for the NYT link.)