AI plush toys promise screen-free play for kids— but at what cost?

The company Curio, located in Redwood city, California is bringing a new kind of toy to market: chatbots wrapped in stuffed animals. Its founders, Misha Sallee and Sam Eaton, have created plushies — Grem, Grok and Gaboo, with each one of them having a Wi-Fi enabled voice box hidden inside. This voice box connects the toy to an Artificial Intelligence (AI) language model designed to talk to young children.

These toys, which are priced at $99 each are joining a growing number of other AI-enabled objects marketed to kids. This trend is set to expand,…