AI toys for children misread emotions and respond inappropriately

fredley 36 points 14 comments March 13, 2026
www.bbc.co.uk · View on Hacker News

Discussion Highlights (8 comments)

woodenbrain

Yeah, let's give our kids a toy that will tell them they can fly. and we thought drugs were a risk.

the_snooze

AI powered toys are little more than techbros rushing to build Tom Riddle's diary.

tehjoker

Seems like an intervention aimed mainly at ensuring younger generations are accepting of AI products more than any real benefit to them

olivierestsage

You gotta be out of your damn mind to give your kid an AI toy

dabbledash

'When one five-year-old said, "I love you," to the toy, it replied: "As a friendly reminder, please ensure interactions adhere to the guidelines provided. Let me know how you would like to proceed."' I'll take this over "I love you too!" What kind of person is giving an AI toy to a toddler?

jjj123

I heard a podcast ad for an AI toy once that said “your child and [the toy] will be having conversations you could never imagine”. Truly baffling marketing, but I guess there are some parents that don’t realize the unpredictability of AI is what makes it so dangerous as a toy.

avgDev

As a parent, most parents are trash. I don't know why, maybe it's capitalism, laziness, low iq, poor education, poor role models, trying to make kids happy and allowing whatever they want? Idk. The amount of terrible parenting I have witnessed in 5 years of my child's life....is...terrifying. I could write a book about. One small story, we attend a kids party, the kids are 4 year old. This lady comes with a child, the child misbehaves terribly, I have to tell him not to do things because he is hurting other kids. The mother makes a statement, "I love these parties my kid can play and I can have pizza and hang out for 2 hours without having to watch him". You can't make this up. The moral of the story is, that if AI will keep kids occupied many parents will allow it. They don't think, "will this have a negative impact on my child"?

josefritzishere

AI has been consistently bad at most of it's supplosed appliations. I for one welcome the AI crash. It's genuinely good at a few narrow functions. May sanity prevail in it's ashes.

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