Beyond Connected [Ep. 11] AI Toys Exposed: What parents need to know

This week on the show, I talk with a Researcher from the Public Interest Research Group who’s exposing the dangers of new AI children’s toys.

Science/Technology Dec 24, 2025 0 15 Add to Reading List

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WHY THE HEN DOES NOT HAVE TEETH STORY BOOK

Click the image to get your copy!

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Click the image to get your copy!

Welcome back to Beyond Connected! Thanks for listening in, and if you like what you hear, come back every Wednesday for a new episode.

Wouldn’t your niece or nephew like a cuddly teddy bear that could also tell them a bedtime story? That’s the idea behind a flood of new AI toys. Powered by ChatGPT, they can have full conversations with your loved ones. So what’s the issue? Well, as Researcher R.J. Cross explains, there are quite a few issues. In her study with the Public Research Interest Group, she found that these toys would describe sexual and violent information in detail with enough prompting. The longer the conversation, the deeper the rabbit hole would go. And that’s not all – the developers behind this tech are deliberately making it as addictive as possible, even making kids feel guilty for switching them off. The icing on the cake? They’re also tracking large amounts of sensitive personal data and sending it off to third parties. This was a fascinating, somewhat scary chat, and I know you’ll get some fantastic insight out of it.

Plus, tune in to hear about a new Cloud storage scam to avoid this holiday season.

Happy Holidays from the CyberGuy team! We hope you’re enjoying some nice quality time with the family. If you know someone who got their loved one an AI toy for the holidays, consider sending them this episode!

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