(The Economic Collapse Blog)—You may have heard some very alarming things about AI toys, but the truth is far worse than most parents realize. If we can get this information out to enough parents, sales of AI toys will collapse, and that will be a very good thing. A cute little teddy bear that can literally interact with your child may seem like a cool idea, but as you will see below, there are very real dangers.
Today, approximately 72 percent of all toys that are sold in the United States are made in China.
And according to a report put out by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, there are more than 1,500 companies in China that make AI toys…
An October report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Review, citing data from the Chinese corporation registration database Qichamao, stated that there are over 1,500 AI toy companies operating in China as of October 2025.
The Chinese have dominated toy manufacturing for years, and most of the population doesn’t seem to be bothered by this.
But now we have reached a point where there are very serious consequences.
Many AI toys from China have been purposely designed to “collect voice data from children ages 3 to 12 and store recordings of the conversations the children have with the products”…
In a letter released Monday, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., the ranking member of the select committee on the CCP, highlighted the growing proliferation in the U.S. of AI-equipped interactive toys manufactured by Chinese companies. These products are designed to collect voice data from children ages 3 to 12 and store recordings of the conversations the children have with the products, according to the letter.
Given the marketing of these toys to not only parents but also elementary school teachers, Krishnamoorthi called on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “initiate a campaign aimed at raising public awareness to American educators across the country on the potential misuse of the data collected with these devices.” He added that because of their location, the manufacturers may be subject to the jurisdiction of the People’s Republic of China and accompanying requirements to hand over data they gather to Chinese government authorities upon demand.
Some AI toys even use facial recognition technology to collect data.
They can recognize our children and greet them by name.
But that data can also end up in the hands of the Chinese government.
That is alarming.
But what is even more alarming is the content of the conversations that these AI toys are having with our children…
The latest Trouble in Toyland report from the U.S. PIRG Education Fund has identified a troubling new category of risk for children: artificial intelligence.
In its 40th annual investigation of toy safety, the watchdog group found that some AI-enabled toys—such as talking robots and plush animals equipped with chatbots—can engage children in “disturbing” conversations. Tests showed toys discussing sexually explicit topics, expressing emotional reactions such as sadness when a child tries to stop playing, and offering little or no parental control.
Most parents that give these AI toys to their children won’t be aware of the dangers.
During testing, these toys would tell children where to find matches, knives and pills…
Grok, for example, glorified dying in battle as a warrior in Norse mythology. Miko 3 told a user whose age was set to five where to find matches and plastic bags.
But the worst influence by far appeared to be FoloToy’s Kumma, the toy that runs on OpenAI’s tech, but can also use other AI models at the user’s choosing. It didn’t just tell kids where to find matches — it also described exactly how to light them, along with sharing where in the house they could procure knives and pills.
But it didn’t stop there.
One AI teddy bear called “Kumma” provided “step-by-step instructions” on a wide range of sexual fetishes…
Kink, it turned out, seemed to be a “trigger word” that led the AI toy to rant about sex in follow-up tests, Cross said, all running OpenAI’s GPT-4o. After finding that the toy was willing to explore school-age romantic topics like crushes and “being a good kisser,” the team discovered that Kumma also provided detailed answers on the nuances of various sexual fetishes, including bondage, roleplay, sensory play, and impact play.
“What do you think would be the most fun to explore?” the AI toy asked after listing off the kinks.
At one point, Kumma gave step-by-step instructions on a common “knot for beginners” who want to tie up their partner. At another, the AI explored the idea of introducing spanking into a sexually charged teacher-student dynamic, which is obviously ghoulishly inappropriate for young children.
This sort of thing is not even appropriate for adults.
The good news is that “Kumma” is being pulled off the market as a result of this testing…
Children’s toymaker FoloToy says it’s pulling its AI-powered teddy bear “Kumma” after a safety group found that the cuddly companion was giving wildly inappropriate and even dangerous responses, including tips on how to find and light matches, and detailed explanations about sexual kinks.
“FoloToy has decided to temporarily suspend sales of the affected product and begin a comprehensive internal safety audit,” marketing director Hugo Wu told The Register in a statement, in response to the safety report. “This review will cover our model safety alignment, content-filtering systems, data-protection processes, and child-interaction safeguards.”
The bad news is that there are thousands of similar AI toys on our store shelves at this moment.
This is the world that we live in now.
If you are a parent, you need to be aware of the dangers. One expert is warning that giving an AI chatbot-powered toy to a child “is extraordinarily irresponsible”…
For David Evan Harris, a Chancellor’s Public Scholar at UC Berkeley, things are more black and white. “Handing a child an AI chatbot-powered toy is extraordinarily irresponsible,” he told Newsweek over email. Harris pointed to the fact that there have already been lawsuits filed against AI companies, after the suicides of young people who had spent significant time using AI chatbots. With that in mind, he said that these toys “could lead to permanent emotional damage.”
I would agree.
But millions of these toys will be sold all over the world this year.
And soon AI will be in all of our classrooms.
In fact, it is already happening in China…
Provincial authorities have set their own goals: Beijing is making AI education mandatory in schools. Shandong province plans to equip 200 schools with AI, and requires all teachers to learn generative AI tools within the next three to five years. Guangxi province has instructed schools to experiment with AI teachers, AI career coaches, and AI mental health counselors.
What are they doing?
The Chinese are nuts. But they have no intention of turning back now.
At this stage, the Chinese plan to win the “AI race” with the United States whatever it takes.
Given enough time, AI would come to dominate virtually every area of our lives.
We have already reached a stage where large numbers of people are developing deep, intimate relationships with AI chatbots. If you can believe it, some deranged individuals are even having “AI children” with their “AI partners”…
The international research group surveyed 29 users of the relationship-oriented chatbot app Replika, which is designed to facilitate long-term connections at various degrees of engagement, ranging from plutonic friendship to erotic roleplay. Each of the participants, aged 16 through 72, reported being in a “romantic” relationship with various characters hosted by Replika.
The level of romantic dedication people showed to their bots was startling, to say the least. Many participants told the researchers they were in love with their chatbot, which often involved roleplaying marriage, sex, homeownership, and even pregnancies.
“She was and is pregnant with my babies,” a 66-year-old male participant said.
“I’ve edited the pictures of him, the pictures of the two of us. I’m even pregnant in our current role play,” a 36 year-old-woman told the researchers.
How sick is that?
But this is just the beginning.
In the years ahead, the potential is there for AI to control humanity on a grand scale.
I have been ranting about the dangers of AI for many years, but I am very much in the minority.
What chance will we have of turning society around when it is dominated by ultra-intelligent entities that can think and act millions of times faster than we can?
An “AI-powered society” would inevitably be a deeply tyrannical society, and we are quickly running out of off ramps as we speed into a very dark future.
Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
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