Craig Pearce’s Post

Walk into any department store this Christmas and you’ll find it, shelves of smiling toys powered by AI. Teddy bears that “listen with love.” Dolls that promise to “grow with your child.” Robots that say they can help with maths, literacy and loneliness. These aren’t screens, and yet they’re wired just the same with microphones, sensors, data connections, companion apps, and, crucially, an invisible thread to corporate servers far beyond parental reach. Audio becomes text, text becomes data, and data becomes insight. Insight, in turn, becomes a product to sell. So where does that leave families looking for gifts?…..In the toy aisle! You don’t need to ban tech, but you do need to know what it’s doing. If a toy contains a microphone, it can record. If it talks back with personal insight, it has memory. If it requires an app, it’s probably storing data. If it connects to the internet, it can be breached. The most powerful thing you can do is ask the question companies don’t want you to ask: Why does this toy need to know so much about my child? The answer is rarely about education. There is nothing primitive about a teddy that doesn’t talk back. There is nothing lacking in a puzzle that requires focus, or a game that teaches turn-taking, or a doll that doesn’t speak but invites storytelling. In fact, child development research still says the best toys are those that are 90% child and only 10% toy, the kind that fuel creativity, not consumer profiling. AI companions may sound wise, but they don’t feel love. They don’t share values. They don’t hold space for big emotions in the way a parent, grandparent, auntie or elder can. They predict the next most likely word. They perform empathy with breathtaking precision and not a shred of care. Read more here —> https://lnkd.in/dv9k3J5E #AI #technology #toys #children #christmas #consumption #creativity