Toymaker Mattel has announced a new partnership with OpenAI to bring artificial intelligence into children’s toys, framing it as a way to “reimagine the future of play.” While details remain scarce, critics warn that this could usher in AI-powered dolls like a “Barbie-bot” capable of holding conversations, remembering details, and mimicking emotional bonds. Experts argue this blurs the line between imagination and reality for young children, who already humanize their toys as part of natural development. When those toys begin talking back with fluency, memory, and simulated affection, the impact on a child’s understanding of real human connection could be profound.

Child advocates are sounding alarms, pointing to risks of replacing real parent-child interaction with AI companions that provide instant “comfort” without the messiness of true relationships. This could undermine empathy, resilience, and the ability to form healthy peer bonds. Some warn that AI-powered toys could do lasting harm to children’s social and emotional development while normalizing dependency on machines from an early age. Rather than “training up a child in the way he should go” (Proverbs 22:6), society risks outsourcing that role to Silicon Valley technocrats, offering children artificial companionship instead of human love and guidance.

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SOURCE: Leo Hohmann