AI education researcher Randi Williams has spent years studying how kids interact with technology and toys, and what she’s found should make every parent stop and think. She reveals how, as tech companies embed AI inside toys, children are forming strong emotional bonds with machines. Explore what this means for their development — and why a playful fix might start with teaching kids to break the things they love. (Recorded at Play@TED on May 14, 2026)
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@RedaEloud-xc2ts
July 24, 2026 at 11:01 am
Hi first comment
@karangrewal_
July 24, 2026 at 11:02 am
I have Never been this Early and quick to a Ted Talk upload 🎉 uploaded 30 seconds ago is crazy
@Alaayaa20
July 24, 2026 at 11:09 am
🎉🎉
@helenaaa3766
July 24, 2026 at 11:19 am
Keep going❤
@SWGpittsburgh
July 24, 2026 at 11:20 am
I listened with an open mind, but I don’t agree with the optimism. Children and adults at the population level have never been the curious explorer of corporate-owned company technology because the technology was designed to create consumers, not critical explorers. Can we honestly say that television, internet, smart phone, and social media have been a “net positive” for children or adults over the last 50 years? But we can confidently conclude that these technologies have served corporation owners well and have been useful for the politically powerful. Tech-optimistic researchers inadvertently endorse the tech they critique by assuming that all children have the means and opportunities to become MIT researchers. We have not yet created a world like that. In the world we do have, tech is predatory.
@FryCrayons
July 24, 2026 at 11:33 am
@SWGpittsburgh Id argue that you having the device and internet connection to share your opinion from wherever you are right now and that I can respond is the net positive. I hear your point but every tool has users that exploit it. The news that spreads the fastest is negative. The positive moments I feel people keep to themselves and those in their circles both online and physically. No one is going to hear about a time I watched a film, heard a song, watched a youtube video at the right time to have an impact on me but I’ll share it with those close to me. I feel most people are critical explorers but don’t think anyone is interested in their opinions or process so they keep it to themselves. Or worse, think they need to be on a stage like TED talks or have a following for anyone to care.
@onjulraz754
July 24, 2026 at 11:37 am
pretty sure this was the opening of M3GAN
@LordAugastus
July 24, 2026 at 11:41 am
You all failed to raise children who question nioliberalism ushering in fall of democracy, never question oligarchs and upperanagement so workplaces became authoritarian pyramids… Now you want to try and raise children who question the latestage capitalist wet dream, a machine that is programmed to lie for the establishment? Rofl…. American brain rot is real…
@thebuffalo2263
July 24, 2026 at 11:44 am
It’s easy, you don’t.
@noredine
July 24, 2026 at 3:21 pm
It’s for people who will do it anyway
@rhunt0210
July 24, 2026 at 12:09 pm
Google is now run by AI. More specifically, Google answers questions that has been asked and answered by the “majority”. The trouble with that is that a group of people can “decide” the outcome of the “answer” to a specific question. In other words, the answers that I sought was altered to in a way the majority wanted to answer it. Biased answer. For example, I KNEW that Ronald Reagan announced his candidacy in a notorious racist county in the state of Mississippi in 1980. I remembered most of his speech to the white Southern Democrats, a part of the then Democratic Party which also leaned heavily conservative. However, when I needed an exact quote he used in the speech, Goggle, AI enhanced server responded by omitting the speech altogether. The outcome of my search was a watered-down highlight of his speech, when I asked for the speech itself. I had to keep asking Google over and over again, each time accusing the search of their biased, lukewarm responses. After the sixth reframing of my question, I discovered that Google’s answer was based on the “input” of multiple inputs of how to water down that part of history. In other words, the answer was “scrubbed” in order to give the more “acceptable” response. This was done to whitewash Reagan’s polarizing speech in order to follow through on the Republican Party’s Southern Strategy after the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960’s. Test my hypothesis: Google Reagan’s Speech at the Neshoba County Fairgrounds. [Neshoba County was where hundreds of FBI agents were dispatched in order to recovery the bodies of three voting rights volunteers in 1964. These men were detained by local law enforcement so that members of the local branch of the KKK could arrive nearby to kill these volunteer. Overall, 21 people were indicted, including Klansmen, the sheriff and some deputies, business and community leaders. Of those 21, only 11 stood trial and were sentenced ranging from 3 months to ten years. None served their entire sentence.
@JWisePitP
July 24, 2026 at 12:49 pm
Only one question, and that coming from the moderator? It would have been a much better presentation to include many more questions from the attendees, even if you edited out the ones that were not pertinent to the subject at hand.
@theendgamefl888
July 24, 2026 at 1:33 pm
Sorry, but I can’t understand parents who foist such incredibly idiotic, utter crap on their kids!!!! That stuff is turning entire generations into morons!! I’m not open to debate on this. Period.
@leannhughes2064
July 24, 2026 at 2:39 pm
There’s so much bad cuz I promise I try with AI all that I end up having an operator myself she only really operates from 8 to 12:00 p.m. most people says 8 to 4 but really I have to rewrite for her just now
@zer0luv
July 24, 2026 at 3:42 pm
AI is not actually intelligent, it’s just a regurgitation of the internet and we all know how faulty the internet is.
Just look at America’s illiterate problem, it’s a robot going to fix that or make it worse?
@doubleuenbeeeh
July 24, 2026 at 4:09 pm
13 wasted minutes of common sense