Though talking toys are nothing new, a fresh crop of AI-enabled playthings have entered the scene, making the "Chatty Cathy" and "Teddy Ruxpin" dolls of yesteryear, which were merely reciting pre-programmed phrases, look positively paleontological.

More than a decade after "My Friend Cayla" — a Bluetooth-enabled and Wi-Fi-connected doll that became "verboten in Deutschland" in 2017 for being a potential espionage device — Mattel and OpenAI's newly-announced partnership to "reimagine the future of play," as the iconic toymaker's chief franchise officer Josh Silverman told Bloomberg in July, is being unleashed upon a generation of kids and parents alike.

Though no specific plans for an AI collaboration have been revealed yet from the duo, the prospect of an AI Barbie seems entirely within

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