By any chance do you remember Furby? They were plush-looking but actually mechanical toys that drove parents demented in the late 1990s. The must-have Christmas gift for kids of their era, they looked like knock-offs from the movie Gremlins and proved enormously popular.
A Furby appeared to learn from listening to its user, going from speaking nonsense called Furbish to saying real words in English. If two of the devices were nearby, they would even speak Furbish with one another.
Then a bunch of people thought they were spying on kids and their parents. The US National Security Agency (NSA) even banned Furbys from certain buildings because of fears they could be used for espionage.
They were such innocent times, when the NSA was concerned about people’s private conversations being listened to covertly. The fears over Furby proved to be unfounded as they didn’t have recording or data-collecting capabilities.
In the new world of artificial intelligence (AI) toys, step right up and behold the horrors. AI toys can actually transmit data, generate all kinds of inappropriate responses, and basically behave the way people thought Furby did way back when.
This all came into the open in November when Kumma, an AI teddy bear created by Singapore-based FoloToy, was found to be suggesting bondage and role-play as good ways to develop a relationship. That’s all fine with consenting adults but given this toy, which used OpenAI’s generative AI models, was marketed at children aged between 3 and 10, it’s a tad concerning.
The global smart-toy market is big and getting bigger. The last decent estimate was a value of €14 billion in 2023, when the hype around generative AI was only getting going. While FoloToy isn’t a known brand in this part of the world, there are big players going down this route.
Mattel is the most notable, having announced a partnership with OpenAI in June. There is at least some relief for parents in that the European Union (EU) has stricter rules than most. The updated version of the EU’s toy safety regulations requires manufacturers to make sure digital toys do not pose a risk to the mental health of children.
It’s far from perfect and it’s also not the only concern when it comes to tech-related gifting this festive season. It’s not just talking teddies that we need to worry about.
The issue that may break the brains of parents this festive season is loot boxes. Many readers likely have youngsters obsessed with Roblox.
If Irish households are so rich, why does it feel like an illusion?
Parents are also used to youngsters begging for money to buy Robux, the in-game currency. It’s here where things tend to get murky as loot boxes tend to get pushed as the must-buy item with those Robux.
These are virtual mystery boxes where the user doesn’t know what they are going to get with percentages assigned to the probability of what items are inside. These are essentially the same mechanics as slot machines.
In other words, children are being introduced to gambling at a rather young age. Given the overall safety reputation of Roblox is poor, particularly when it came to sexualised content, this may not be a huge shock.
The thing is, games with far more mundane reputations also employ loot boxes with the same mechanics. The EA FC series, the successor to Fifa, has it with its Ultimate Team format and basketball game NBA 2K has a similar format.
The new gambling regulator is expected to address loot boxes once in place but, as is so often the case, it’s a matter of technology being ahead of regulation. Much as December is the peak period for buying physical toys, it’s also the peak for monetisation of these games.
It’s not all bad. There are plenty of educational tech gifts out there focused on Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and coding. Even within gaming, there are games that don’t use loot boxes such as the main version of Fortnite (although a lesser known version does include them), and Valorant deliberately eschews them.
It’s important not to overcorrect for fears. The Furby panic was a direct result of that. Furby didn’t learn anything – it had preprogrammed words that it would say over time to give the illusion of learning. When two Furbies were near each other, a simple infrared sensor would detect them. As for the microphone, it could barely detect sound and certainly could not record, transmit or even understand anything.
The tech of today has plenty of hidden mechanics but it doesn’t take all that much searching to find them. A cursory look by an adult at a loot box screen makes the slot machine analogy obvious and it’s probably best to not assume the maker of a teddy bear using generative AI has your best interests at heart.
Tech isn’t evil, it is not the bad guy. It has and always will be a tool. You should expect the tools you buy to be safe but you’re also a fool if you don’t inspect them first, especially before letting children near them.
