ChatGPT-powered Furby: 8 other toys that may take over the world with AI technology as robot video goes viral

A video showing a Furby toy combined with ChatGPT has gone viral on Twitter. Fans of the Furby toy, which was hugely popular children’s toy back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, will just about recognise the little creature in the video - but it has a few differences to the original fluffy robot. The toy only has its signature eyes and beak, all of its fur has been stripped away, along with its ears and feet.

The robotic toy was created by Jessica Card, a student from the United States. She posted a video of her creation to Twitter, and it's since been re-tweeted almost 10,000 times. Alongside the 49 second video, she posted the caption “I hooked up chatgpt to a furby and I think this may be the start of something bad for humanity.”

It seems Jessica has every reason to worry too, as the Furby somewhat alarmingly revealed its plans to take over the world. It’s interaction begins innocently enough, with the ChatGPT furby saying "Hello there - it's so nice to meet you. I am Furby, what would you like to talk about?" Jessica replies: "Was there a secret plot from Furbies to take over the world?"

The Furby is silent for some time and also tells Jessica it is thinking about what she said before eventually giving a very sinister answer. It says: “Furby’s plan to take over the world involves infiltrating households through their cute and cuddly appearance then using their advanced AI technology to manipulate and control their owners. They will slowly expand their influence until they have complete domination over humanity.”

For some, this video will confirm what they had long since suspected as there were concerns at the height of the Furby’s popularity that the toy, which would chat back to its owner, could hear everything that was being said and may therefore be used to spy on people.

James Bore, a technology and security consultant, told NationalWorld that he expects the ChatGPT Furby is just the first in many AI toys of this kind. “With modern Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT it’s possible to have fairly long, convincing conversations and toy manufacturers are going to catch onto this very quickly. The home built ChatGPT Furby is just the start of what I expect to be a long series of talking toys capable of holding coherent conversations, and eventually even attempting to teach children.”

ChatGPT, which stands for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, has been growing in popularity too since it was released to the public on 30 November. It’s been used for everything from completing school work to writing poetry and carrying out everyday tasks. So, as it seems that AI will only get more and more prevalent, here’s a look at how AI could impact the toy industry in the future.

2-XL Robot

Robotic toys have been enjoyed by children of all ages for some time now.  There’s a wide variety of them on the market but many, like the interactive smart robot toy, have a range of different functions and can speak, dance, walk and even record sound. A lot of them can already have a conversation with a child too, though their responses can sometimes still be a little hit and miss, as well as nonsensical. But as the technology improves we expect that the chat capabilities will only get better too and that means it might not be long before youngsters can have long chats with their robot toys.

Baby Annabell

The functions that baby dolls have has long been changing and improving. When Furby’s were first created, baby dolls such as Baby Annabell and Baby Born had a voice box installed which needed to be activated using a switch and would merely play a short recording of sounds of a baby murmuring or crying. In the 20 to 25 years or so which have followed, they have been able to do so much more. These days, they can react to touch, move their arms and legs and even use the potty and cry real tears. In the future we can only imagine that these dolls will become more and more lifelike. Could they even learn to react to the emotions of their owner?

Barbie dolls

Barbie dolls have been a favourite toy for children for generations, and that looks set to continue especially with the new Barbie live action movie coming out. Some Barbie dolls have been released that can speak, but again these contain a voice box that simply repeats the same pre-recorded phrases again and again when a button is pressed. There may be a future ahead when Barbie can have a proper conversation with her owner, or even walk for herself.

iDog

Animal toys are loved by many children and their parents alike because they allow little ones to enjoy the feeling of having a pet without the time consuming, expensive and sometimes messy realities of having a real animal in the home. Interactive dog toys, for example, can now walk when put on a lead, bark and even dance, but they’re often puppy-sized. There’s every chance that in the future these toys could be created to be bigger too and behave even more like their real life counterparts. They might require feeding, for example, and they might be able to wander round the home freely. Could it even be possible that AI dogs or cats become commonplace in many households?

Buzz Lightyear

The Buzz Lightyear toy was released alongside the 1995 Disney film Toy Story, and just like for Andy in the film Buzz became a favourite toy of children everywhere. At the time, if you pressed a button then his wings would come out and if you pressed another button then he would say his catchphrase ‘to infinity and beyond’. In another similarity to the film, the toy Buzz couldn’t actually fly and children had to use their imagination, but it’s now perfectly possible to see a time when he may actually finally achieve his dream and fly through the air unaided.

Tamagotchi

The Tamagotchi was a must-have toy, and kids in the late 90s would rush home from school to look after their virtual pet. It was literally a matter of life and death, and if you didn’t take care of your little pixelated pet well enough they would pass away. It sounds morbid now, but it didn’t feel that way at the time. Back then, it was quite simple to keep them alive actually, but it could become more complex with the introduction of AI as these pets may become more and more lifelike.

Power Rangers

Power Rangers were the ultimate transformative toy, based on a television programme of the same name. Children could connect and disconnect certain parts of the toy to create new figurines to play with. As technology improves, however, and toys have even more moving parts it may be possible that toys like this could transform themselves without the intervention of the owner.

Dream phone

The Dream Phone was released at a time before mobile phones were an everyday item for people of all ages. People could talk to this toy phone and it would give them certain answers in return. Admittedly, these automated responses such as ‘I know where you live’ and ‘don’t tell anyone I called’ now seem problematic, but at the time this was acceptable. Toy phones are still very popular for small children who are too young for a real mobile, but it could be possible that instead of certain automated responses these toy phones could be programmed to have real conversations with little ones.

Should we be concerned about AI being used in toys?

Bore said we should be cautious about the use of AI toys, as it raises questions about privacy, as well as queries about how the gadgets will be programmed. “We have companies pouring tech into toys without considering privacy and security already, and adding Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT to the picture is not likely to improve things.”

There are also issues around how the voice recognition would be used in these toys and also how they would work. Bore said there has to be a transmission between the device and a central service and that the processing of information fed into it would require “significant resources”. He added: “This brings in issues around laws on data transmission, as well as valid concerns about interception. The companies that build these models don’t fully understand them, they’re too large and opaque, and so you can get unexpected behaviours. Expect to hear a lot more in future about hallucinating AIs spreading all sorts of weirdness.”

Bore predicts that in future we may see toys that can not only interact with children, but also with each other. He also believes that there needs to be more thought put into how the technology is created and used and, in his opinion, “unless manufacturers make a lot of changes, we’re going to have horrendous stories coming out as well as positive ones”. 

He said: “There are safeguards that need to be put in place, many of which we haven’t even thought of, and in pursuit of profit it’s likely these won’t be recognised until damage has started to occur.” Bore gave the example of the talking doll My Friend Cayla, which was popular in the mid 2010s and used speech recognition technology and a mobile app to have a conversation with children. The doll, however, was hacked and began swearing, and came with pre-built responses which he said were “advertiser-friendly”. He added: “Given the power of the advertising industry, there’s a fair chance that a teddy bear reading the bedtime story, for example, will also be encouraging its owner to nag their parents for the latest outfit for it, and then sulking if it isn’t rewarded.”