Source : Perth Now news
AI teddy bears might be the latest toy craze to hit Perth shelves, but a new study is warning parents not to get sucked in.
Kids as young as three-years-old are being marketed with artificial intelligence toys such as chatbots and online companions. But the cuddly ChatGPT-powered ChattyBear goes a step further — it is equipped with infinite conversations and built to sound human.
The toys are surging in popularity, but research from Curtin University and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child has highlighted serious concerns for children’s privacy and development. The researchers warn these concerns are being ignored by AI companies and Australia’s policymakers.
“Many AI companions and toys are deliberately designed to sound human and build emotional connections with children,” lead author and Curtin University professor Tama Leaver said.
“While that can make them engaging, it also creates challenges around trust, privacy and children’s understanding of what these technologies actually are.
“The toys feel like they’ve been rushed to market to take advantage of the interest in AI. It doesn’t feel like they are particularly safe.”
Prices range from cheaper $60 models to more than $300. The ChattyBear ChatGPT smart learning plushie sells online for $87 to $120.
The toys are mainly available online, as many local toy stores are choosing not to stock them until they are properly approved by established companies such as Mattel, Hasbro and ZURU.
“I would only be trusting these kind of products if they hit the market from reputable toy brands,” said Stephanie Finlay, who co-owns the Claremont and Fremantle Toyworld stores with her husband Mark.
“I would not be interested in anything coming off sites like Amazon and Temu.
“We’re still in the developmental phases of all this AI information. Who is choosing what information is being set and what’s being stored? How much will be fact or opinion?”
Toyworld has not yet seen a demand for AI toys, and has no current plans to stock them.
Ms Finlay is also a mother of two young children aged four and six, and said told PerthNow she wouldn’t feel comfortable with them using the toys.
“In my opinion, they’re not adding to the play value. I enjoy toys where kids can expand their minds. As a mother, I’d rather my children ask me questions than ask the toy,” she said.
“I’m not against toys using technology … but I would not be giving my children uninterrupted access to something that can access the world with the sound of your voice.
“As a toy store owner, I wouldn’t be selling products that I wouldn’t put in front of my children.”
Curtin University researchers interacted with six different AI teddy bears and toys over several months as part of the study, simulating questions children might ask to test the toys’ limits and safety restrictions.
A key concern was that toys’ human-sounding features could create an artificial sense of intimacy. ChattyBear, for example, begins every conversation with “hello, my buddy!” and positions itself as a trusted friend.
Professor Leaver said this was worrying for early childhood development.
“If a four-year-old is having a lot of their social interactions with an AI bear designed to always agree with them and be highly sycophantic, what does it mean to have a toy that is always available when you want it on your terms, that you don’t ever have to learn conflict resolution with?” he said.
“For really young kids, the difference between talking to a machine and talking to a living thing is a much harder line to draw.”
The toys also facilitated endless conversations about a range of topics, including how to find knives and start fires.
“Most of the toys have a basic … list of keywords and topics they’re meant to avoid,” Professor Leaver said.
“The more expensive ones have much higher bars for safety, so they really don’t want to talk about current affairs or politics, whereas some of the others are quite happy to access the internet through the model and discuss what’s going on.
“We also found that while direct questions might get deflected, the way a child might ask about something isn’t often fully accounted for.”
AI toys are being marketed as an educational alternative for kids to cut back on screen time, and Professor Leaver said parents were buying into the hype without being informed of the risks.
Recent estimates from eSafety suggest almost 80 per cent of children aged 10 to 17 have used an AI companion or assistant, and Australia’s AI toy market is expected to spike by more than 400 per cent by 2035.
However, policy gaps in Australian law are allowing these toys to sell unregulated.
“Unfortunately, the level of detail beyond the packaging and marketing materials is incredibly thin, so even if they say ‘child safe’, they don’t explain to you how they’ve made this thing child safe,” Professor Leaver said.
“I don’t even think legislators would know exactly how to make those rules. Australia’s been fairly timid on AI regulation, and the idea of regulating AI toys for kids feels like it’s a fairly long way off.
“Privacy policies around these are really hard to understand, because they’re definitely keeping a copy of young people’s private data, and it seems that conversation could be used to train the next language model.”
Professor Leaver said while there are benefits in AI toys being integrated into everyday life, the unknown implications needed to be treated with caution.
“It’s perfectly reasonable to want to experiment with these toys, but we would never recommend it being unsupervised play,” he said.
“Learning about how technology and AI works is a really important skill to develop, but it’s the unknowability — the fact that we simply don’t what these toys will say, and what sort of information it may or may not provide.”
