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Peter Cochrane's Hard Drive 1999 Your child's new friends CRUISING the shops at Christmas, it was not hard to be impressed by the range of intelligent toys on sale. Dolls, bears and abstract characters that react to touch and sound seemed to be everywhere, as did cars, trucks, robots and intelligent construction kits that link to PCs. The advance since my childhood could not have been more stark. Many of my toys were handmade or improvised during games, but among those that had been manufactured were my prized Meccano construction set and my Dinky cars. I still remember the hours of joy derived from building cranes, bridges, cars and planes. I also recall those childish leaps of imagination that saw major wars and battles re-enacted in the garden with not quite everything on the same scale. Life was simple then and choices limited, as were budgets at Christmas and birthdays. Today, people are so much richer and hi-tech toys are cheaper, with far more features than we could have imagined just five years ago. It is not surprising, then, that there are those who worry about the long-term effects on children of forming relationships with, and a reliance on, intelligent toys. Generally, I do not share their concern because, in my experience, children are smarter than most adults are willing to credit, and are well able to discern the difference between carbon- and silicon-based intelligence. I also prefer the supposed world of Star Wars over that of Terminator as a more likely outcome. Children have always been able to form relationships with anything from a comfort blanket to animals to other children, and given the least amount of material and motivation, they will engage in mind games and imaginary scenarios as a group or in isolation. The biggest danger comes when parents abdicate their vital role and allow a near total substitution for their attention, love and affection. Unfortunately, this already happens with television, which offers no opportunity of interaction. At least semi-intelligent toys offer considerable opportunities for a profitable relationship. I think it matters little whether a child has a silicon pet, or a hamster, goldfish, cat or dog. A life filled with pets constructed from silicon seems to be equally valid, and a lot less messy. I think I can safely assume that before I expire, humans will be forming solid, lifelong relationships with silicon-based automata that will be indistinguishable, intelligence- and behaviour-wise, from many of our domestic pets today. Reviewing the future of toy technology recently, I saw a prototype bear with miniature TV cameras for eyes and a microprocessor in its body, affording a modest interactive speech and animation ability. Watching it in action, I had a flashback to that scene in one of the Poltergeist films, in which voices start to whisper to a little girl in front of the television. She calmly turns and shouts: "They're back." Imagine a very near future with a toy bear sitting on the settee with your child watching TV. The manufacturer's advert comes on, the bear recognises and records it, and later whispers to your child that it would like a little friend, or group of friends, for Christmas. Perhaps it will even print out a shopping list for you and confirm the stock availability over the Net. Peter Cochrane holds the Collier Chair for the Public Understanding of Science & Technology at the University of Bristol. His home page is: |
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