The skeleton couldn’t stop talking about alcohol — that was the first problem.
Nine-year-old Nathalie convinced her parents to shell out $179 for a bartending bag of bones that caught her eye on a September trip to Home Depot. “John the Last Call Mixologist,” a six-foot, bearded (and tattooed?) animatronic skeleton who looked like he must have once worked the counter at a dimly lit bar kept talking about making his “famous witches’ brew that gets you feeling so good you’ll howl at the moon.”
So, not the most kid friendly. They could have just returned it. But instead, Nathalie kept wondering whether she could change his voice, what he said and give him a new personality altogether.
The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.
Never underestimate a girl on a mission: Weeks later, John would transform into Uncle Murray, a chatty scientist who loves explosions (only safe ones), as well as kids, candy, telling jokes and the color pink.
To begin his transformation, Nathalie dragged the skeleton into the basement at her Alameda, California, home and looked for the box of wires that controls his movements and phrases, working on him on the weekends between fourth-grade homework and soccer practice (she’s a center midfielder).
She took photos of the cable work and input them into ChatGPT to see if it was even possible to change his voice. Working with a multimeter, a tool that measures electrical properties, she determined which cables controlled what.
This was the trickiest part, Nathalie said. (The 19th is withholding Nathalie’s last name and other details because she is a minor.)
Her dad, Jim, was impressed with his daughter’s patience and perseverance. “She goes for it,” he said.
You may have guessed it already, but Nathalie loves a project, like the time she was determined to build a house in the basement, which ended up being big enough to fit a couch inside.
But, “she’s never done a thing like this,” said Jim, who works in tech sales. “I was the credit card and Nathalie was the brain.”.
When the testing was done, they were ready to buy a microchip to program the skeleton’s new personality. The idea for his name came from a book series Nathalie loves called “Bad Kitty.” It features a bumbling adult called Uncle Murray.
“I wanted something goofy for Halloween,” she said, so she told Claude AI to program a personality for the newly imagined Uncle Murray. His new quirks include a pet dolphin that he simply can’t stop chatting about and a fixation with his manner of death (he fell down the stairs a couple of times).
Uncle Murray’s new brain, which lives in a tiny computer called a Raspberry Pi that Jim bought and Nathalie set up (and drilled in herself), is now able to detect when people are nearby and listen to what they ask through a speakerphone. Claude AI decides what he says based on his interests, though it’s different every time. In conversation, he can hold his own for quite some time, something Nathalie’s younger brother tested over a five-minute exchange about gummy bears.
For their family, it’s been a window into how artificial intelligence can be used positively to “open doors for what we can do as individuals and kids,” Jim said.
Now, Nathalie wants to find a way to share Uncle Murray with the world.
She started with a stop at her elementary school, where she presented Uncle Murray to her class. For the occasion, she programmed him with details about her teacher, her school and their mascot.
“I talked about how I built him, and then we had lots of questions,” Nathalie said. Her classmates wanted to know about Uncle Murray’s second favorite color (besides pink) and his favorite foods.
For the record, she said, “he said he would like to stick with pink.”
Nathalie is thinking of building a Mrs. Murray next year. The year after that, maybe even a Murray family dog.
This Halloween, Uncle Murray will hit the road with Nathalie as she competes in a soccer tournament, and later that night, he’ll be outside her house inviting trick-or-treaters to strike up a conversation. A sign that Nathalie painted will stand next to him instructing kids to say their name, costume and ask him for a joke. “Speak up, he’s 200 years old,” it reads.
When The 19th spoke to Uncle Murray for this story, he asked about Halloween costumes and favorite candy. “Sour Patch Kids — excellent choice,” he said. “Pucker power. My inventor Nathalie loves sour candy, too.”
There was not a single mention of alcohol.
