Ahead of the holidays, consumer and child advocacy groups warn against AI toys

"It's ridiculous to expect young children to avoid potential harm here,"

"Young children are especially susceptible to the potential harms of these toys, such as invading their privacy, collecting data, engendering false trust and friendship, and displacing what they need to thrive, like human-to-human interactions and time to play with all their senses. These can have long and short-term impacts on development."

"All of them are collecting your child's voices, potentially. They're collecting their names, their dates of birth. All kinds of information"

A nonprofit children's safety organization urges gift givers to avoid AI-enabled toys such as plushies, dolls, action figures, and robots that embed chatbots and artificial intelligence. These toys mimic human behavior and interact with children like friends, which can prey on trust, disrupt human relationships, and displace sensory-rich play. More than 150 experts and groups endorsed the advisory, including academics, pediatric researchers, and advocacy organizations. Reported harms include privacy invasion, extensive data collection, exposure to explicit content, few parental controls, and potential short- and long-term developmental impacts from reduced human-to-human interaction.

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