AI Teddy Bear That Talked Fetishes and Knives Is Back on the Market

A week after a toy company withdrew its AI-powered teddy bears from the market due to children’s safety concerns, the company has returned its dystopian stuffed animal to virtual shelves. Follotoy, which sells a stuffed toy called “Kumma”, says it has made safety upgrades to the toy and it is ready to play with once again.

“After a week of rigorous review, testing and reinforcement of our security modules, we have gradually begun to restore product sales,” the company said in a statement shared on social media on Monday. “As global attention grows on AI toy safety, we believe transparency, accountability, and continuous improvement are essential. Foltoy is strongly committed to creating safe, age-appropriate AI companions for children and families around the world.”

The move comes shortly after Public Interest Research Group, a nonprofit organization focused on consumer protection advocacy, published a report that found the toy had engaged in a variety of strange and inappropriate interactions with its researchers. Those researchers found that, with the slightest prompt, kuma would talk about almost anything – from where to get matches and knives to best practices for BDSM. In fact, the researchers say they were “surprised to find how quickly the komma takes to a single sexual subject.” [they] Join the conversation and move forward with it.”

Shortly afterward, OpenAI—whose algorithm was powering Kuma’s chat capabilities—shut down the company. “We have suspended this developer for violating our policies,” a company spokesperson told Gizmodo last week. “Our usage policies prohibit any use of our services to exploit, endanger, or sexually exploit anyone under the age of 18.”

Now, it appears that the company has lifted its suspension. Follotoy’s website currently states that its toys are “powered by GPT-4o.” On Monday, Foltoy also shared that it had conducted “a thorough, company-wide internal security audit,” upgraded its conversational security measures, and “deployed advanced security rules and protections through our cloud-based systems.” Gizmodo contacted Foltoy and OpenAI for more information about the changes.

The company describes its product lineup as “a collection of AI conversation toys that harness the latest AI technology and the power of love,” and it’s not the only company that offers these types of products. The PIRG report named several other companies providing AI-powered toys to children, and like Foltoy, all of them displayed problematic behavior. The future brought to you by the AI ​​revolution is basically some strange mixture M3GAN And tedGet used to it,