Smart toy
These enable it to learn, behave according to preset patterns, and alter its actions depending upon environmental stimuli and user input.
[2][3] Generally, the smart toy may be controlled by software which is embedded in firmware or else loaded from an input device such as a USB flash drive, Memory Stick or CD-ROM.
Perhaps the biggest early contribution is from novelty and toy makers from the 1800s who made automatons such as Vaucanson's mechanical duck, von Kempelen's The Turk, and the Silver Swan.
Contemporary smart toys utilize speech recognition and activation; that is, they appear to comprehend and react to words that are spoken.
[17] Consequently, regardless of store-shelf attractiveness, the child tires quickly of them after only one or two play sessions, and the parents' investment is largely wasted.
[18] Stevanne Auerbach, in her book Smart Play—Smart Toys introduces the notion of Play Quotient or simply PQ.
PQ is a rating system based upon a weighted average constructed from a comprehensive list of play value attributes.
In other words, because of their strong multimedia capabilities children may watch presentations provided by the smart toys and be entertained, but will not really play with the devices nor be otherwise engaged by them.
Smart toy advocates also point to research indicating that children learn more effectively with good interactive software.
[25] Market research company GfK Australia found that parents are spending record amounts on electronic and interactive toys.
[26] Mark Allen states that the greatest impediment to the further growth of the smart toy industry is the lack of development of artificial intelligence and speech recognition.
At their present stage of evolution smart toys really can't learn so they are limited to predefined actions and speech.
Present artificial intelligence capabilities are too expensive to implement in a toy, but this will change as computational power and speed come down in price.
[27] Others have cited the high cost of MEMS-based sensors and actuators as a factor constraining the rapid development of smart toys.
Factors enhancing the growth of the smart toy segment include the greatly more sophisticated tastes of children today as well as the spread of home PCs.
As an example, one of the "smart toys" the study cites are "interactive puppets" that become "real playmates" through the combination of artificial intelligence and ultrafine sensors.
Claire Lerner, a child-development specialist, says that pretend play can be inhibited by highly structured toys: "They superimpose someone else's story on the kids.
[36] Anthropologist David Lancy argues that parent-child play is largely an artifact of wealthy developed countries not practiced by most of the world's population.
This is possibly one reservation on a completely unrestricted view that parents should always be involved in selecting appropriate smart toys for their children.
Notable examples include the Black Mirror episode "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too", which features a smart toy modelled after a famous fictional pop idol, the 2022 film M3GAN, which features a smart toy resembling a little girl designed as a "friend" for real children, the 2024 TV series Sunny, which features a domestic assistance robot (homebot), the 1998 film Small Soldiers, in which fictitious company Globotech Industries uses a smart chip to give their toys personality and a life of their own, and 51N3RG.Y (pronounced "Synergy"), a small benevolent robot appearing in Jem and the Holograms.
While earlier films from the 2000s explored the idea of artificial intelligence used to mimic life, such as AIA in Afraid, the Red and White Queens in the Resident Evil film series or "Simone" (S1M0NE) in Simone, the exploration of such technology in the realm of smart toys is still a growing and fairly recent territory in fiction.
