Smart Toys - is AI in play helping children prepare for their future?

Smart toys often incorporate AI and some help children learn coding. Smart Toy Awards recognised 7 outstanding products for children.Two of the judges discuss the benefits - and risks - of high-tech play.

“These toys, they're not just toys. They are smart and they will get smarter, they have machine learning and the learning will get more intelligent. They have suggestive algorithms…We should be very mindful on what toys we want our kids to be around.”

So says will.i.am on this episode of Radio Davos. The musician and tech entrepreneur was a judge at the inaugural Smart Toy Awards hosted by the Generation AI project community, in partnership with the World Economic Forum.

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On Radio Davos, we hear from him, and from University of California Berkeley paediatrician and developmental scientist Ron Dahl.

“Increasingly, technology is interwoven in how children are learning, playing and interacting with the world. And if we are not paying attention to digital technology and its role in how children are learning we are not understanding the social context within which this is happening,” Prof Dahl told the podcast.