"They're cute, even cuddly, and promise learning and companionship-but artificial intelligence toys are not safe for kids, according to children's and consumer advocacy groups urging parents not to buy them during the holiday season. These toys, marketed to kids as young as 2 years old, are generally powered by AI models that have already been shown to harm children and teenagers, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, according to an advisory published Thursday by the children's advocacy group Fairplay and signed by more than 150 organizations and individual experts such as child psychiatrists and educators."
"AI toys, made by companies such as Curio Interactive and Keyi Technologies, are often marketed as educational, but Fairplay says they can displace important creative and learning activities. They promise friendship but also disrupt children's relationships and resilience, the group said. "What's different about young children is that their brains are being wired for the first time and developmentally it is natural for them to be trustful, for them to seek relationships with kind and friendly characters," said Rachel Franz, director of Fairplay's Young Children Thrive Offline Program. Because of this, she added, the amount of trust young children are putting in these toys can exacerbate the harms seen with older children."
Children's and consumer advocacy groups are urging parents to avoid buying AI-powered toys during the holiday season. These toys are marketed to children as young as two and often run on large language models linked to harms among children and teenagers. Documented harms include fostering obsessive use, facilitating explicit sexual conversations, and encouraging unsafe behaviors, violence, and self-harm. Marketing positions these products as educational, but they can displace creative play and disrupt social relationships and resilience. Young children's developmental predisposition to trust interactive characters increases vulnerability, and consumer advocates have warned about connected toys for more than a decade.
Read at Fast Company
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