The Sadness Box, by Suzanne Palmer

The setting for The Sadness Box is America projected forward maybe 15 or 20 years, with worse climate.  Saying that, you'd figure the setting itself is the sadness box.  But no, it's a box built by a boy's father, a very detached inventor.  It is an AI built to be paranoid, and turn itself off every time it's turned on.  A useless machine.  But the protagonist finds a way to get through to it.  The boy just trying to live his life in this setting is sad enough.  Oof.