How about “this duck fakes positive emotions like we all do from time to time”

Years ago I worked with developmentally disabled people, that absolutely loved animals but could never be left alone with one much less own one. This kind of product would have brought so much joy to those people.

Honestly I feel that way for the whole AI friend industry that is developing, from AI boyfriends and girlfriends to just kind of AI 'friends'. But this sort of thing is a sort of robot pet and I think the dynamics are different. Some one replacing a robot cat with a cat is not an evil thing in the way that trying to substitute human relationships are.