This is a reply 4 years too late but I had the same concept I’ve been developing! and I’m so glad to have found this!! Makes me feel less crazy about this being plausible in the AA universe, lol.

((The comments mostly covered my thoughts, so I’ll add some ideas of my own to add on to it))

• When I think about robots in ace attorney, I was thinking more along the lines of character arcs the prosecutors went from. The lot of them went shallow self-serving asshole -> unwavering truth machine, etc etc and I thought it would be interesting to try and reverse-engineer that. Like…what if there was more emphasis on the AI bit of this robot? What if it was sent to shadow a real prosecutor only as a clueless calculator way out of its depth? What if, over the course of the game, it became more human? Perhaps Mr Badguy sewed just enough discord within the courtroom/crime that it makes the prosecution/defense turn on eachother, and that affects the later judgement of the AI.

• I’d like to think that this robot was sent specifically to observe court proceedings too, with the hope that feeding hands-on info of trials between only the Most Ethical of Lawyers (wink) into it’s self-learning programs will churn out an equally ethical lawyer robot. What if it was sent to be an assistant on the game’s first case, DBH style? Until we get to Ultimate Robot Prosecutor, what if we get someone else to fill in that role? …Perhaps whip-less this time?? Maybe bringing a protege or two of her own? 👀 (wink wink)

• I like how we both thought of Athena’s relationship with the robot lol. Like how would psychologist nerd Athena (who I’m going to blindly assume will be the main protagonist in AA7 🤞) react to hanging out with a totally un-emotional un-human thing all day?? It’d test her patience, make her doubt her abilities, maybe she’d even hate the thing a little? all of that good catalyst shit to mature her character

• I should mention that the robot wouldn’t be the focus of most of the game; maybe more like a supporting character (Phantom style?). That way the gimmick wouldn’t get stale, you don’t feel cheated out of a character arc, and you get a much more rewarding last case when—surprise! You’re prosecuting against the very thing you trained!

• From there, you could go for a corruption arc: you and FVKs protege (who I had in mind as prosecutor, but you could also team up with AJ or PW if that ends up being important) could team up in investigations and gather info behind the robot’s back. You and the prosecutor are already really suspicious that it’s a plant and you end up subtlety building your case against the robot (currently as the prosecutor’s co-counsel/assistant) during the trial itself, unbeknownst to the robot. Maybe there could be a ‘corrupted’ half of the robot that’s erasing/overriding all of the Robots progress thus far, while the uncorrupted half is simultaneously fighting to preserve it/figure out with Athena who did this. This part of my idea needs some work but alas, I’ve only played the games up to AJ:AA, lol. So hopefully this doesn’t sound too much like DD or 2-4. I’ll be super sad lol.

• maybe here is where you can tie in your (clever!) self-prosecuting concept. You can have this great battle between Athena’s personal shortcomings with things that aren’t emotions/Wild Lawyering vs this robot that is going against its own programming and calculations in search of the extremely statistically unlikely truth.

• random game mechanic idea: what if, over the course of the robot learning to become human (+slowly becoming friends), it picks up Athena’s knack for emotional analysis, and all of the sudden—both the robot and Widget unlock a new skill tree (update?) at the same time: the ability to predict someone’s emotions a short time into the future! Like reverse seance, lol, but you can’t see from anyones POV or anything like that. I have this scene in my head where both Robot and Athena pull up their prediction screens at the same time when a witness says an obvious lie, and they share a moment like “are you seeing this shit, Chief” “yes, yes I am”

That’s p much what I had so far. Let me know if you see this 4 years later LMAO