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"Hello Barbie" Listens To Children Via Cloud
jones_supa writes For a long time we have had toys that talk back to their owners, but a new "smart" Barbie doll's eavesdropping and data-gathering functions have privacy advocates crying foul. Toymaker Mattel bills Hello Barbie as the world's first "interactive doll" due to its ability to record children's playtime conversations and respond to them, once the audio is transmitted over WiFi to a cloud server. In a demo video, a Mattel presenter at the 2015 Toy Fair in New York says the new doll fulfills the top request that Mattel receives from girls: to have a two-way dialogue. "They want to have a conversation with Barbie," she said, adding that the new toy will be "the very first fashion doll that has continuous learning, so that she can have a unique relationship with each girl." Susan Linn, the executive director of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, has written a statement in which she says how the product is seriously creepy and creates a host of dangers for children and families. She asks people to join her in a petition under the proposal of Mattel discontinuing the toy.
...be a book or a doll? In an age where Internet is thick on the ground, no contest.
So, will a weak-AI owned by a for-profit company inspire little girls to have this conversation:
"Mom! The Raspberry Pi 2 is out! It's got four ARM7 cores! My 3D printer would print a pair of ruby slippers in under an HOUR! Please!"
or this one?
"Mom! If I want to be a size zero, I need Kellog's Brand Nutrigrain Bars!"
Lisa [playing with Malibu Stacy]: A hush falls over the general assembly as Stacy approaches the podium to deliver what will no doubt be a stirring and memorable address. [pulls Stacy's cord]
Malibu Stacy: I wish they taught shopping in school!
Lisa: [groans, pulls Stacy's cord again]
Malibu Stacy: Let's bake some cookies for the boys!
Lisa: Come on, Stacy. I've waited my whole life to hear you speak. Don't you have anything relevant to say? [pulls cord]
Malibu Stacy: Don't ask me, I'm just a girl. [giggles]
Bart: Right on! Say it, sister.
Lisa: It's not funny, Bart. Millions of girls will grow up thinking that this is the right way to act....that they can never be more than vacuous ninnies whose only goal is to look pretty, land a rich husband, and spend all day on the phone with their equally vacuous friends talking about how damn terrific it is to look pretty and HAVE A RICH HUSBAND!!!!
Bart: Just what I was going to say.
HOORAH!!
Really? Really really really????
Do you think Mattel cares?
We're talking about a company run by men, who produces obscenely sexist toys which portray women so poorly that I feel bad for any parents who actually think they're good toys.
They won't listen.
Just don't buy such garbage toys. Simple. Your kids will thank you later in life.
I remember when my daughter was about 2.5-4 commercials were unbelievable effective. Even those commercials that targeted the mother watching with the kid had an impact and my daughter would often get upset we didn't have the right products. I'd love to just see a ban on advertising for kids under 10, and public financing.
Any predictions for how many days it takes for this to get hacked and we have Talky Tina epidemic?
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
"You're such a good little girl. Now, go the kitchen and find that big shiny knife that mommy told you never to touch. It's okay because we're going to play a fun game called mommy cushion, Good girl." No thanks.
When your daughter demands to have a conversation with Barbie, you explain to your child that you don't have conversations with things, lest you be institutionalized and put on heavy medication before long.
*) let's not be sexist, mkay?
*) children don't request, they demand, especially the ones with parents who buy them Barbie dolls.
made the wrong mod, posting to remove it
How come it's creepy with Barbie but not with siri, google, smart tvs, xbox kinect, or the myriad of other things that constantly monitor us when we think we are alone?
Or, maybe, the child could have a conversation with her toy and use her imagination to have the toy reply. Why does everything need to be preset and electronically prepared for our kids so that they don't need to use their imaginations to play?
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
From the story summary calling it creepy, to just about every initial response being negative, I cannot help but shed a tear for the love of technology that used to permeate these hallowed (now hollow) halls.
Having a doll that can talk back to you, that can intelligently respond to what you are asking and learn what you want to talk about is not creepy. That is actually really interesting. It could be really cool.
Is there potential for abuse? Sure. Would it be nice to have a clear off switch so it doesn't pick up things it shouldn't? Sure. But that doesn't make it a bad idea, or mean we should kill the baby in the cradle, and see how it actually turns out.
Can the rabid un-thining pitchfork-wielding crazed mobs that roam Slashdot now please take a step back and think about the future at least once?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why? Because it is currently the mainstream trend to pretend like imagination and non-logical thinking are not only totally delusional, but harbingers of Ted Cruz's apocalypse.
Or, maybe, the child could have a conversation with her toy and use her imagination to have the toy reply. Why does everything need to be preset and electronically prepared for our kids so that they don't need to use their imaginations to play?
Training a generation of worker drones question nothing and as their managers prefer they will not ask questions too. Woohoo! Duh! (Homer Simpson)
1. 4chan kickstarter successfully orders 128 hello barbies, a raspberry pi, and some old karaoke speakers. ISIS, NAZI, and Boko Haram propaganda are then looped through mplayer. blood curdling screams and pornographic soundtracks liven up the data collection.
2. 4chan kickstarter successfully purchases 16 hello barbies, straps them to the undercarriage of random long haul tractor trailers at undisclosed truck stops.
3. original plans failing, 256 Hello Barbies are purchased, locked in a closet, the question "Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like? " is asked. the barbies answer eachother for eternity.
Good people go to bed earlier.
It would be fine if it was not the case that the doll answered back itself without network access using its own processing capacities. The point of this toy is not to let kids have discussions with their dolls, its to mine conversations for marketing purposes from children. This has happened before with Mattel was distributing Windows games with Malware and Spyware that the FTC slapped them with a fine for.
Who really can provide all the time that that a little girl requires. Now the problem is solved. The electric Barbie will be her friend and confident, and guide her through the mysteries of life. Parents can continue to watch TV safe in the knowledge that their children are safe. I presume that interactive destructor robots are not far off so little boys will not be left behind.
The will all grow up to be good, politically correct individuals. As the software becomes more intelligent, it will appeal to older and older children. No need to deal with real friends who need to be cared for, listened to, and can be nasty. Barbie is always nice. Always listens, is always concerned about you. And all that personality data can be sold to other companies to help guide their entire life. Buttons sewn when she is 3, pressed when she is 30, how wonderful.
Computers are getting smarter. This toy may be a bit of a joke, but the next version will be better. And they will be coming cheaply from China, with software driven by Google.
When Computers Can Think
Anthony
greased-up Yoda doll won't rat you out your darkest desires to the cloud.
Or, maybe, the child could have a conversation with her toy and use her imagination to have the toy reply. Why does everything need to be preset and electronically prepared for our kids so that they don't need to use their imaginations to play?
IMAGINATION BAD!
If children learned to use their imaginations, then they will be adults with imaginations and won't be as easily swayed to do our bidding.
They want to have a conversation with Barbie
It's official, folks. Childhood imagination is now officially dead.
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
I'm uncomfortable with Siri, Cortana, the "smart" TV voice commands, and the whole lot of it unless and until all the processing can be done locally. Under no circumstances do I want my conversational data uploaded to the cloud for processing. Damned if I'm going to watch what I say in my own home because of eavesdropping equipment!
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I have a daughter in the age group heavily marketed by toy companies. When she asks for a toy that I, for what ever reason, disagree with I tell her NO. If you don't like a product, for what ever reason, DON'T F'ING BUY ONE!!!! Grow a pair and tell little Johnny or Suzie that you don't approve and they will have to find something else to play with. If you are late to this "parenting" thing it is going to take some time and you'll have to deal with the spoiled brat attitude, but in time you'll have well behaved respectable children. My kids don't have cell phones, we don't have cable (which eliminates most of the advertising) and the computers have ad blocking. We have Netflix and original Wii systems, one of which is on a CRT TV. Teach them to respect what they have and that they don't need the latest and greatest heavily marketed widget and they will go far in life.
I just had this extraordinary vision of Barbie teaching a computer science curriculum to girls everywhere.
I presume that interactive destructor robots are not far off so little boys will not be left behind.
People are freaked out about a doll that has a server processing audio.
That is NOTHING compared to the thought of a ten-year-old buy in charge of a small ultra-strong autonomous robotic mech suit... that learns right and wrong from the boy. *shudder*.
On the other hand, that should absolutely stomp out the last vestiges of nerds being picked on in school. So I guess i'm in full support. Just lead me to the Kickstarter.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
For the time being, you can expect all inexpensive products that feature voice recognition will be sending sound recordings to a server for processing. Building the voice recognition software and databases into the product would make them prohibitively expensive.
So that a tortured doll becomes homicidal?
This kind of thing sounded cool and amazing in Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age, but in real life it's just fucking creepy and perverted.
The key difference is that Stephenson's version was a primer that educated the owner about maths and science and all sorts of things, while this abomination is from a company that has a history of marketing to and exploiting children, and is a doll whose purpose is to teach rigidly oppressive gender roles, teaching girls things like "math is hard".
sadly, Stephenson's version is probably only possible in fiction. In real life, the corporate profit motive makes it just marketing spyware.
Being a good parent you restrict access to the toy(s) and here is the conversation at school with the school supplied Barbie. "I hate mommy and daddy, they are so mean to me. They won't get me a talking Barbie and banned me from using it at my friends houses too! *sob*" Barbie: "Really, should I report them and get you new parents?"
Anyone who has raised a child knows that kids say some pretty mean things growing up. It's part of growing up, and covered in every book I read on psychology for raising kids. This is a plain old horrible idea on just about every level.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
THIS!
A child learning to use their imagination is required for proper childhood development! We need to let our children use theirs.
Seriously... no, no, no and fuck no. I hate barbies anyway, this takes it to a new level.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
Why can't it happen locally? We've had "learning" chatter bots and local voice recognition for ages.
Yes, which is why that would suck compared to what they are trying to do - have a more intelligent conversation.
Point a five year old at Eliza sometime and see how long they maintain interest.
Really, I don't see why we couldn't even cram the whole thing on the doll.
Perhaps ten years from now we can. Right now, not if you want to make it work at all well and not be terrible, plus about 10x more expensive than it will be. It's pretty cheap to run audio to the cloud and come back with voice synth, way WAY more expensive to move that processing into Every. Single Doll. Not to mention worse battery, and so on. The doll as it is will be $75, already pretty expensive.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is marked funny, but think about it for a minute. Our computers, phones, tablets -- even watches -- are collecting way more information than this Barbie is and yet how many people think these ubiquitous machines are creepy? Not many. The lesson here might be this: the shape of the surveillance device doesn't make it creepy -- what it collects is what makes it creepy. Oddly though, very few people are creeped out by their own phone.
Two conclusions based on "shape irrelevant":
1) Barbie, phones, computers etc. etc. have become extremely creepy surveillance devices (this is where I am, which is depressing, because I've loved technology for so long).
2) Barbie, phones, computers etc. etc. are surveillance devices and surveillance is totally not creepy -- just don't care.
To mix and match 1 & 2 though, making barbie creepy and siri not, is inconsistent and illogical.
a good childhood is about innocence, fun, and the world being in general a good place.
Big Brother is there to help with that.
We have seen abuse over abuse stappled over abuse in the last decade. At some point you start to WORRY a little bit especially with young children very weak to suggestion and advertising. That's not luddism, which would be rejection of ANY improvement, that's called being a realistic fuck which learned and lived through the last decade.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Mattel didn't call it the "world's first interactive doll", they called it the "very first fashion doll that has continuous learning". The key words here being "fashion doll", which allows them to differentiate themselves from competitors they don't consider fashionable, and "continuous learning", i.e. the server is keeping a log of previous conversations, and using them to have better conversations.
The Cayla doll for instance was brilliant at answering questions like "What is Polytetrafluoroethylene?", and rubbish at answering questions like "Do you like kittens?" Sadly, it was a rather dull toy for a 7yr old girl, despite looking initially exciting.
What it didn't do, and this Barbie won't be doing, is snooping on us. I'd expect it to use Bluetooth to communicate with an App, which will then be using WiFi to connect to the Mattel server. If you don't have the App turned on, and by the sounds of it, if you don't press the button on the doll, it won't be listening. So if a child is playing with it, don't discuss national secrets, and if a child is not playing with it, there's no snooping.
The online conversation history is interesting, but not worth getting worked up about. It's recording how you've played with it, like all sorts of other online games keep logs.
Sure, there's a potential for abuse - "Hey - you say you like ponies! Did you know Mattel make a Barbie pony that's only $9.99 from your local Wal-Mart?" but I think if they start doing that, the backlash of people not buying their products out of sheer disgust will stop them pretty quickly. I'd say the worst is probably more like "Hey - you say you like ponies! I've got a pony called Muffin" without mentioning that Muffin costs $9.99 from Wal-Mart (or might do if it existed).
Hello this is Barbie online service, to accept the terms of service and continue press on the righ breast, to decline press on the left breast.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/...
Forget that, do you know where I can find....a Cherry 2000, I really want her to go get me a Pepsi. ;)
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
...short story "I Always Do What Teddy Says".
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I hope soon will not be aggressive toys that can harm the child.
Success is the sum of small efforts - repeated day in and day out.