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Show HN: AI toy I worked on is in stores

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81–90 of 183 posts

Re: Show HN: AI toy I worked on is in stores

#82
post #61

How much computing power would one need to get this working completely local running a half decent llm fine tuned to sound like santa with all tts, stt and the pipecat inbetween?

More than you can physically fit in a phone like that. Many hundreds if not thousands of watts of GPU.

I run LLMs and TTS capable of this on my laptop since last year

Re: Show HN: AI toy I worked on is in stores

#83
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would buy a dev board + build it yourself, you will get a much better experience then trying to reuse the existing thing. I have written implementations target at specific boards. So go and buy one of these and boom stick it in anything you want. I have done this for my kids and have a bunch of different characters. My favorite is my daughter has a toy that pretends to be 'the ocean' it is so funny and existential.…

You could have just answered "no".

The answer isn't no.

You can open up the phone and modify the ESP32. I do that pretty often with IoT devices. It's not as easy as setting a URL, but totally possible if you are determined enough.

Re: Show HN: AI toy I worked on is in stores

#84
post #79

This is why everyone not in technology hates us. I'm a technologist. I get it, on some level it's kinda cool that we have the technology to bring this thing into the world, and so of course one wants to build it and make it real. Breadboarding it as a fun weekend project is one thing. But making it exist as a product sold on Walmart.com is another. What is the point, exactly? I mean this as a serious question to thin…

That's feels like such a luddite take. 50 years from now AI powered toys will be so ubiquitous and common to people, they will barely blink.

Just imagine how people must've failed against the first electronic toys 80 years ago, or Pokémon 30 years ago. Ask yourself... if this makes you depressed, what exact kind of new technology would make you happy?

Re: Show HN: AI toy I worked on is in stores

#87
post #79

This is why everyone not in technology hates us. I'm a technologist. I get it, on some level it's kinda cool that we have the technology to bring this thing into the world, and so of course one wants to build it and make it real. Breadboarding it as a fun weekend project is one thing. But making it exist as a product sold on Walmart.com is another. What is the point, exactly? I mean this as a serious question to thin…

How is roleplay with this object different then other toys? If you get lost in a D&D game is that bad because the world isn't real? Getting lost in Myst and making Doom WADs was a joy I have always been trying to recapture. I am constantly looking for a way to do that for others.

What do you think of my take here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45575175? These 'LLM Role play' toys have hit a real fun spot with my kids.

Re: Show HN: AI toy I worked on is in stores

#88

My biggest concern with a toy like this is that my future kid might ask for a water park in our backyard and then Santa would respond with an enthusiastic “That’s a great idea Kyle! I’ll consult with the elves to see how I can make it happen!”

I had an app idea that was effectively this Walmart product but Santa was always in a blizzard and/or hard of hearing, and continuously misconstrued requests. "What?! You want to order bark?" Idea being that kids love nonsense, but also the scenario pointed towards kids not expecting anything to be a real request.

Re: Show HN: AI toy I worked on is in stores

#89
post #79

This is why everyone not in technology hates us. I'm a technologist. I get it, on some level it's kinda cool that we have the technology to bring this thing into the world, and so of course one wants to build it and make it real. Breadboarding it as a fun weekend project is one thing. But making it exist as a product sold on Walmart.com is another. What is the point, exactly? I mean this as a serious question to thin…

While I totally agree with you that I wouldn't want my kids exposed to this thing, that fact alone doesn't make it vastly different from tons of media where I don't know what the content is going to be. One of the worst messages embedded in video games and RPGs, in my opinion, is to implicitly accept that someone else designed a world that you get lost in and play in without really understanding that you're being subtly constrained by limitations and manipulated by opinions written into the game. So I'm a believer in teaching kids to create in an open ended way before they get lost or brainwashed in someone else's artificial world. I think you either are the creator or the player, when you spend days and weeks inside an imaginary world. I wouldn't want my kids to be players.

As far as an object just existing and demanding something, though, I feel like you could say the same about Teddy Ruxpin or a singing bass, both of which fit well into comedy and horror, because they sit on a creepy edge between kitsch and nightmare.

Re: Show HN: AI toy I worked on is in stores

#90
post #79

This is why everyone not in technology hates us. I'm a technologist. I get it, on some level it's kinda cool that we have the technology to bring this thing into the world, and so of course one wants to build it and make it real. Breadboarding it as a fun weekend project is one thing. But making it exist as a product sold on Walmart.com is another. What is the point, exactly? I mean this as a serious question to thin…

That's feels like such a luddite take. 50 years from now AI powered toys will be so ubiquitous and common to people, they will barely blink. Just imagine how people must've failed against the first electronic toys 80 years ago, or Pokémon 30 years ago. Ask yourself... if this makes you depressed, what exact kind of new technology would make you happy?

The one that doesn’t wiretap by kids.

> 50 years from now AI powered toys will be so ubiquitous and common to people, they will barely blink.

There was a time where people thought the same about nuclear energy. That every device is powered by its own small reactor. They sold even radioactive toys and medicine.

Or think of plastics. A technological success story but now we find plastics everywhere. On the bottom of the oceans and inside our bodies.

50 years from now people may ask why we wasted so much resources on AI.

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