I think a doll that finds out what other toys are available then suggests playing with them together with the human could expand play or even cause greater use of educational toys.
The doll asks "show me around your room" then uploads to the cloud a vector representation (think wireframe or bulk painted) of all the toys and what is in the cubbies. The AI in the cloud figures out what toy is where.
Then the doll says "lets play with the microscope" or something like that, and quite possibly the AI has something near a script that goes with each different toy, or stages mini plays with the stuffed animals. The representation is non photographic to reassure parents.-- beanangel, Sep 01 2017 Notes on "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" https://memetechnol...lustrated-primer-2/Creepy or not, this particular cat appears to have exited the bag and is presently sniffing around the goldfish bowl. [Zeuxis, Sep 04 2017] Those blanks make this idea look kind of creepy.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 01 2017 You say that with the family you have ?
Given that even your most "normal" relatives would have the Addams Family running screaming for the hills, you're hardly in a position to criticize. And no, we definitely don't want to know what position you are actually in at this exact moment . What you do in the privacy of your own nation state is your own business and/or problem.-- 8th of 7, Sep 01 2017 That is the last time you get an invite to one of our St. Rudle's Day regattas, [8th].-- MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 01 2017 What, even if we bring twice as much ... stuff ... as last time ? With all the fluff scraped off, and no bits of waxed paper sticking to it ?-- 8th of 7, Sep 01 2017 No. You left the wings on.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 01 2017 This idea is sufficiently creepy without the blank.-- Voice, Sep 01 2017 Managed entirely by those creepy basement-dweller people that record themselves on YouTube playing with toys.-- RayfordSteele, Sep 01 2017 Hopefully, not networked. Just corporate data going back to central.
Our A.I downfall is going to love to get it's interrupts on this. And Ken says "Open as much stuff as you can. Now, let's play with that key to the gun safe"-- wjt, Sep 02 2017 What's wrong with children playing with whatever comes to hand instead of relying on digital technology? I think this is an idea that is creepy and controlling and would result in children being even more dumbed down than they are now. Give them a hammer and let them bash stuff to bits, then join them all together again.-- xenzag, Sep 02 2017 Do these toys last all summer long?-- nineteenthly, Sep 02 2017 That depends if anyone knows what you did last summer ...-- 8th of 7, Sep 02 2017 This is a fine and original idea. The toy as partner in play. Toys could definitely play board games. The kid would have to be the hands.-- bungston, Sep 02 2017 "Look, daddy, I got a toy from Mr. Putin again!" "That's nice, Baron. Let's put it in the special dark safe with the other ones.."-- RayfordSteele, Sep 02 2017 Regarding privacy concerns:
There are now camera modules with built-in computer vision that only report what they see and do not give any image output, intended for privacy-sensitive applications. They can be trained to recognize objects encountered in a particular application. They came from a big electronic components company but I don't remember which one.
Also, there was recently an announcement of the development of a low-power vision processor (called EQSCALE, in case you want to look it up), though I haven't seen any details yet.
My point is that vision is now sufficiently advanced that something like this could potentially be implemented with no cloud vision processing at all, without significantly impacting battery life.
Not regarding privacy concerns:
Anki's robot Cozmo (announced since you posted your idea) does something like this. I don't remember how its vision works, though, and I'm pretty sure the only toy it can play with with you is the smart cube thing that comes with it (with which it can play a lot of games, though).-- notexactly, Jan 21 2018 Do those "games" include Assimilating entire intelligent species ?-- 8th of 7, Jan 21 2018 random, halfbakery