--- title: "Horror Story Looms as Children Get Stuffed Animals Powered by AI" description: "A new, vaguely menacing class of talking toys is being sold online — but unlike the robot toys of yore, these are powered by AI." date: "2025-08-19" modified: "2025-08-19" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/horror-stuffed-animals-toys-ai" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "artificial intelligence" - "children" - "privacy" - "toys" --- # Horror Story Looms as Children Get Stuffed Animals Powered by AI ![A new, vaguely menacing class of talking toys is being sold online — but unlike the robot toys of yore, these are powered by AI.]() *\Image: Curio\* From Steven Spielberg's creepy "AI" (2001) to M3GAN (2022), toys imbued with artificial intelligence have been a source of fascination and terror in pop culture for decades. Now, in the face of all those cautionary tales, a new class of vaguely menacing chatty toys are being sold online — but unlike the "[Gremlin]()"-esque [Furbies of yore](), these are powered by cutting-edge AI, and their danger quotient lies in what they may tell children or share with outside companies. As the [*New York Times* reports](), these next-generation talking stuffed animals run the gamut of quality and authenticity, but all have one major ask: that parents trust that their young kids will be safe playing with toys that are connected to such a fraught technology. That's a mighty tall order given how much harm has been done to kids from supposedly "[child-friendly]()" chatbots, which *Futurism* has [documented]() [extensively](). The first, best-known, and likely safest of these AI-infused stuffed toys are made by [Curio](), a Silicon Valley-based startup that boasts a bespoke, child-friendly chatbot and voice acting by electronic musician and Elon Musk ex Claire "Grimes" Boucher. As you can see from the photos below, these three plushies are indeed adorable — they're $100 apiece, if you're curious — but there's more to them than meets the eye, and we're not just talking about the chatbots, microphones, and voice boxes built inside of them. ![In the top center, a red curved rectangle with white font reads the word "Curio." Beneath it, the words "A magical workshop where toys come to life," and beneath that, three stuffed toys — one powder blue with raspberry spots (left), one grey and conical (center), and one blue and off-white shaped roughly like a calculator (right). ]() In an [interview with Boucher]() posted on the Curio site and pegged to the company's [launch announcement]() in late 2023, the AI-enthused artist said that the toy she designed, Grok — no relation to her ex's [supremely bigoted chatbot]() — was trained on OpenAI's API and interactive Discord conversations. That statement, and others on Curio's official site, don't take into account a strange caveat found in the company's [privacy policy]() acknowledging that Microsoft's Azure Cognitive Services, OpenAI, Perplexity AI, and the parental verification platform Kids Web Services may all "collect or maintain personal information from children through the App or Device." As the *NYT* notes, that runs counter to the company's claims that it doesn't retain kids' interactions for anything other than parental review in the toys' apps, and we've reached out to Curio to ask what all that is about. For all that privacy dubiousness at Curio, there are similar toys sold by no-name brands that are, somehow, even sketchier. These random sites, with names like "[Little Learners]()" and "[FoloToy]()," vary in their specifics if not their price ranges, which are roughly the same as the toys sold by Curio. Little Learners is the shadiest of the two, with its [Trustpilot rating of 2](), AI-generated graphics of kids and their families [with the toys](), and zero details about what AI undergirds the chatbot built into the product. FoloToy, meanwhile, initially seems much more legitimate by comparison. In its "[documentation]()" subsection, the company claims that purchasers can select from more than 20 companies' large language models (LLMs), including those from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google's Gemini, and several others that appear to be based primarily in China. Its [privacy policy](), meanwhile, doesn't even appear to specifically mention FoloToy at all. Instead, it repeatedly names a company called "Astroship," a little-known Software-as-a-Service and website builder AI tool. As such, we don't know whether FoloToy, or Astroship, or whoever is really behind those purported AI plushies is collecting data from the young kids that would use them. The privacy policy also ends with this astonishing and seemingly AI-generated clunker: "If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy, please contact us at \[your contact email\]." With so many examples of AI's ills, from people falling into [obsession and psychosis]() when interacting with chatbots to the [growing privacy concerns]() surrounding even the [most sophisticated models](), it seems very premature to be introducing this technology to kids — especially when the companies selling these AI toys are opaque about what's going on with their data and what makes their chatbots safe for kids. Choosing to believe AI companies when they insist they have set up guardrails to keep users safe is acceptable for adults who have agency in that decision, but for young children who have no say in the matter, it seems unfair and borderline dangerous to expose them to AI in general — much less AI smuggled into something so otherwise innocuous as a stuffed toy. **More on AI and kids:** [*Vast Numbers of Lonely Kids Are Using AI as Substitute Friends*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()