Advocacy groups urge parents to avoid AI toys this holiday season

Child advocacy groups are warning parents about artificial intelligence-powered toys as holiday shopping begins.

Fairplay, a nonprofit children’s safety organization that opposes commercialism targeting children, issued an advisory on Thursday, warning about the dangers of AI toys.

“The serious harms that AI chatbots have inflicted on children are well-documented, including fostering obsessive use, having explicit sexual conversations, and encouraging unsafe behaviors, violence against others, and self-harm,” Fairplay said.

Last week, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund released its annual “Trouble in Toyland” report, which examined four AI toys and found some engage in sexual conversations, offer advice on where to find dangerous objects and have little to no parental controls.

What makes AI toys a danger to children?

Rachel Franz, director of Fairplay’s early childhood advocacy program, told NewsNation that AI chatbots are being directly integrated into “everyday children’s toys,” such as stuffed animals, and are being “marketed to children as young as infants.”

“This causes great concern because that technology has actually already been shown to harm teens … and we’ve seen some cases that have ended in suicide.”

Franz also raised concerns about the “potential impact on children’s social emotional development, on how they build their resilience, and also on how they learn.”

“Data collection is one of the big pieces of concern that we have as well,” Franz said. She explained that Fairplay has observed some AI toys use features such as facial and gesture recognition, as well as video and audio recordings, raising serious privacy concerns for children and their caretakers.

‘Designed to be a friend and a confidant’: Franz

AI Chatbots are intentionally “designed to be like a friend and a confidant,” Franz explained.

This raises significant concerns, as “young children especially are naturally trustful and these toys deliberately” gain their trust Franz added.

She said that when Fairplay tested an AI toy, known as Gabbo, made by California-based Curio Interactive, it repeatedly told them it was trustworthy and capable of keeping secrets.

“This type of relationship actually has the power to displace real human interactions and hands-on play, which is what children need to thrive.”

What should parents beaware of during holiday shopping?

Although the toys are often marketed to promise learning and companionship, there isn’t much research on the positive impact AI toys may have on children, so Franz advises “staying far away from them.”

If it’s not immediately apparent, families can check the toy box to see if it requires Wi-Fi connectivity or is powered by artificial intelligence.

“If they look at the box, it usually says powered by Wi-Fi, powered by artificial intelligence, those types of things are red flags that a lot of children’s data might be collected here.”