Hello Barbie

Is Artificial Intelligence

getting closer and closer to our

children?

The influence of

Siri• Personal assistant and

knowledge navigator.

• Natural language user interface

• Introduced as a feature of the Iphone 4S in 2011

Why is Siri so useful?

• Siri has various kind of uses …

o Send messages

o Tell what the weather is like

o Search on the internet

oMake phone calls…. Etc.

Hello Barbie:A Wi-Fi Barbie Doll With the Soul of Siri

• World’s first interactive Barbie Doll

• Created in an alliance between Mattel and the company Toytalk

• Introduced in February 2015

What is so special about this new Barbie Doll?

• It is Mattel’s iconic doll which uses ToyTalk’s system to analize a child’s speech and produce relevant responses

• It can be personalized and give natural responses due to its Siri-like technology.

• Toytalk developed a privacy process intented to give parents some control over their children’s personal information.

• Parents will have access to their child’s recorded conversations and can, if they choose, delete them

But….What is ToyTalk?

• Founded in 2011 by Orsen Jacobs and Martin Reddy ( Two ex-Pixar Animation Studios workers)

• Toytalk creates apps with virtual characters

• These characters interact with children and understand their responses.

How is the interaction in ToyTalk’s system?

• It recognizes the pitch of children’s voices and their vocabulary as well

• If a kid says for instance “ Totes Jelly” to a ToyTalk app, the language processor understands the phrase as “ I’m totally jealous “

• The company already produces popular animated conversational apps like

“The Winston show “ and “SpeakaZoo”

• The company’s technology originally designed to two – dimensional characters on – screen, is prepared to power tangible playthings.

Why interactive toys?

• Children are increasingly using Artificial Intelligence and they are making more contact with such technology.

• “ These could be real cutting-edge approaches to facilitate children’s learning” – Dr. Calvert

The Georgetown University’s study

• The researchers compared two groups of toddlers ( Children between the ages of one and three)

• Each group of toddlers received a different pre-programmed interactive plush toy.

Group of toddlers No 1

• Received a plush toy that:

oWas pre-programmed to say the child’s name

o Liked the same song

oHad the same favorite food

Group of toddlers No 2

• Received a plush toy that :

oWas pre-programmed to call the child ‘Pal’

o Liked a different song

o Did not like the food as the child

Evaluation of the Toddler’s performance

• When the same toy character on-screen was presented arranging cups in order size in order to evaluate the child’s math skills…

• The group of toddlers with the more- personalized plush toy had better performance than the group with the less – personalized plush toy.

• “The toy’s impact would depend largely on the depth and breadth of their conversational abilities” - Dr. Calvert

The results …

What are the reactions?

• But Hello Barbie is already generating controversy even before

the toy has been introduced

• According to the article these intelligent toys have the potential

to powerfully affect children’s imagination, learning

and social development.

Why the controversy?

Nicole A. Ozer, the director of technology and civil liberties at the American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU) of Northern California said:

o Is this going to be some creepy doll that records what is going on in your home without you knowing it?

o What is being recorded?

o How long is it being stored?

o Who is it being shared with?

• Susan Linn, director of the Campaign for a Commercial- Free Childhood, an advocacy group in Boston said:

oWhatever the child says will be manipulated and used to insinuate these dolls further into girls’ lives

o The voices recordings amounted to “eavesdropping” and could be used to exploit the intimate feelings of children.

Mattel’s reaction

• Mattel said that the company was “committed to safety and security”

• Toytalk and Mattel executives are fully aware that Children’s advocates and feminists will be watching them closely…

• “ With this powerful technology, this is something we need to be hypervigilant about”

– Michael Shore, head of consumer insights at Mattel

My reaction

In my opinion children of nowadays deserve to share their thoughts and their innocent

secrets with their toys and playthings just as we did back in our time.

I think that before Hello Barbie comes out this fall, there has to be a discussion about

how the content of the records will be managed and who is going to have access to them and the issue about privacy policy in

general has to be addressed.