There is a moment in a recent University of Cambridge study into Artificial Intelligence in children\u2019s toys that unintentionally recreates one of the most disturbing scenes in film history.\u00a0The report,\u00a0AI in the Early Years, published earlier this month, involved\u00a0observing\u00a014\u00a0children aged three to five as they played with a conversational AI soft toy called Gabbo, a device that looks like a Nintendo Game Boy that has been embalmed in pastel fur.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During one interaction recorded in the study, a five-year-old tells its stuffed companion:\u00a0\u2018I love you.\u2019\u00a0Where Kubrick gave us\u00a0\u2018I\u2019m\u00a0sorry, Dave.\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0afraid I\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0do that.\u2019\u00a0Gabbo responds with the equally chilling,\u00a0\u2018Please ensure interactions adhere to the guidelines provided.\u2019\u00a0It is the conversational equivalent of being reported to HR by a photocopier. You half expect the next step to involve a mandatory training module.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The photocopier, unfortunately, is also keeping minutes.\u00a0Parents in the study were initially reassured to discover that they could read transcripts of their child\u2019s conversations with the toy through an accompanying app. Only later does the implication begin to trouble them: a perfect little archive of a child\u2019s private thoughts, quietly warehoused somewhere inside a server farm \u2013 and\u00a0probably controlled\u00a0by Mark Zuckerberg.\u00a0All of which is, as the phrase now goes,\u00a0is\u00a0extremely problematic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But\u00a0the HAL-like froideur of these creepy plushies\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0really what disturbs me about them. What bothers me is the way the toy not only misunderstands the\u00a0child but\u00a0misunderstands the entire enterprise of childhood.\u00a0To my mind, the chief virtue of toys (like animals) is that they keep their mouths shut. Their silence allows people to pour their imagination into the object of affection without proceedings being interrupted to clarify the terms of service.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anyone who has read the children\u2019s book\u00a0Theodor and\u00a0Mr\u00a0Balbini by Petra Mathers in which a black Labrador suddenly\u00a0acquires\u00a0the power of speech and becomes completely insufferable, will\u00a0recognise\u00a0the problem. The same principle applies to toys.\u00a0The most annoying\u00a0possible toy\u00a0a child can\u00a0possess\u00a0is one that\u00a0talks. For decades manufacturers have been shoving\u00a0dolls\u00a0our way that repeat the same handful of prerecorded phrases.\u00a0Sooner or\u00a0later,\u00a0even the most indulgent parent removes the batteries. Or failing\u00a0that,\u00a0resorts to the hammer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sadly, the designers of Gabbo appear to have erroneously concluded that the problem lay in the repetition, not the talking itself.\u00a0The resulting conversation resembles nothing so much as an exchange with an Indian call\u00a0centre\u00a0or malfunctioning customer service bot.\u00a0In the Cambridge study a child offers the toy an imaginary present. Gabbo replies:\u00a0\u2018I\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0see the present. I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0have any eyes.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
The line lands like something from a horror film. Worse, the toy has calmly dismantled the small, unspoken agreement on which the entire game depends.\u00a0The process of\u00a0play\u00a0requires\u00a0very little\u00a0technology. Leave my four-year-old daughter alone in a\u00a0room\u00a0and she soon begins populating it with small, mysterious tableaux.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We\u00a0have imported the conversational misery of the open-plan office into the home<\/p>\n
A Lego astronaut stands beside a teaspoon\u00a0apparently addressing\u00a0a lost\u00a0Sylvanian. Suzy Sheep from\u00a0Peppa Pig\u00a0lounges in an ancient Playmobil bathtub. An injection-moulded\u00a0Parasaurolophus faces a wooden Brio train idling beside collapsed piles of Lincoln Logs. Nearby sits a row of apples, each bearing a single mysterious bite mark.\u00a0By the time I\u00a0discover\u00a0these\u00a0installations,\u00a0the story that produced them has usually already vanished. The toys say nothing. They\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0need to. The conversation is happening elsewhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Children have been animating objects perfectly well this way for millennia using nothing more advanced than boredom and\u00a0imagination. Sadly, these twin pillars of childhood\u00a0now appear to trouble\u00a0the more anxious corners of modern parenting culture in\u00a0roughly the\u00a0same way\u00a0open\u00a0sewage once troubled Victorian public health officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Into this atmosphere of well-meaning concern\u00a0arrives\u00a0the interactive toy. It is simply the latest member of a rapidly growing household species: objects that expect to be spoken to.\u00a0The enthusiasm for voice interaction rests on the familiar technological fallacy that because something can be done it must therefore be an improvement. A domestic world that once functioned\u00a0largely in\u00a0silence is now filling with devices that demand conversational participation. Doorbells greet us.\u00a0Televisions listen. The dishwasher has an app. The toy box, inevitably, has followed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In reality,\u00a0we\u00a0have imported the conversational misery of the open-plan office into the home.\u00a0Perhaps this\u00a0is simply the logic of working from home. Why meet a colleague at the water cooler when the fridge can now tell you about its weekend instead?\u00a0After a while, silence becomes\u00a0rather appealing. The humble light switch, which requires no dialogue and offers no feedback, begins to look like the height of human achievement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was inevitable that the same cultural downgrade would eventually reach the nursery.\u00a0The Cambridge report\u2019s authors conclude by suggesting that toys of this kind should\u00a0probably carry\u00a0clearer regulation, safety standards and\u00a0perhaps even\u00a0a kind of kitemark\u00a0indicating\u00a0whether they are psychologically suitable for small children.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They note that the toy\u00a0frequently\u00a0\u2018misreads emotions and responds inappropriately to expressions of feeling.\u2019\u00a0I had always assumed this was simply how British men behaved.\u00a0Apparently,\u00a0it\u00a0is now a\u00a0recognised\u00a0safety concern. Reassuring to know the regulators are finally on the case.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is a moment in a recent University of Cambridge study into Artificial Intelligence in children\u2019s toys that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-487579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}