aevaRE: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@aeva/115620614043295134
ok so I've got a furby now,
it was an interesting experience for the hour or so where it seemed to be functioning normally. i quite liked that it has a fortune telling mode. i think all vaguely notoriously haunted toys should include the ability to confer with the supernatural. also there's a guided meditation mode, and a "light show" mode. i get the feeling the target audience is people old enough to buy weed
Klara in the hidden land@aeva Realizing that I did not at all understand what Furbies were for, apparently.
Was the idea to give your kid early exposure to a simulation of being friends with kind of a pushy hippie, way before they're old enough for anyone to possibly invite them to Burning Man?
Maya@klara @aeva The 80s and 90s liked its toys to be disturbing mockeries of life, mostly because the independent inventors making this stuff were the types who would go to Burning Man, and watch gremlins stoned.
Remember Teddy Ruxpin and the various brands of creepy animatronic baby dolls? There were even animatronic Cabbage Patch Kid dolls for maximum horror factor.
The main market for Furbies today are the people who are actually nostalgic for this kind of nightmare fuel, but also want something that is better at conning them into thinking it is alive.
In short, LLM users.
I still break out into a cold sweat when remembering the demon chanting "u-lah lee loh, u-lah lee loh" in the middle of the night from my brother's bedroom.
EDIT: Just to make it clear, this is me being silly about my fear of creepy animatronics, which is a downright weird phobia to have for someone into robotics.
I do not actually think people who like furbies are LLM users, and I apologize for the poorly considered joke.
@Mayabotics @aeva You know, I guess it is weird in retrospect that I grew up just learning to ignore ads for all sorts of questionable-to-horrific childhood products, but, I dunno, it was America in the 80s.
@Mayabotics @klara interestingly the 2023 redesign is very clear that there is no app involved, no internet connection is involved what soever, and the furby is very definitely not spying on you. so I think you are partially wrong, the target audience is someone who *does not* want an LLM in their home
@Mayabotics @klara imo they did a pretty good job at not hitting the uncanny valley with this guy.
@Mayabotics @klara also consider I did put that on my wishlist, so you are talking shit about me right now whether or not you intended it
@Mayabotics @klara now, I'm sure your first instinct will be to reply "but aeva, you're different, the average person does not see a furby as a raw material for unhinged projects" a quick search on youtube says otherwise
@aeva @klara I knew I should have left the /joke in.
I thought the post was over the top enough to be clear it was meant as a joke, so I apologize for implying that you would use LLMs.
That bit was riffing a bit on the silliness that supposedly caused the NSA to ban Furbies from their office, because they thought it could learn and repeat what it heard, despite that a tear down would have quickly shown that wasn't the case at all.
That said, I totally buy that the average person enjoys grotesque parodies of life; the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise is a massive success after all. Meanwhile, I noped out at the first monster in My Friendly Neighborhood.
yomimono, still on land@aeva @klara Oh good, I’m glad you already know about the unhinged projects. Also not surprised.
There’s a repeating exhibition of Furby art in Madison on Friday the 13th (at least, the most recent handful of them), which isn’t really big enough to justify a trip from Chicago by itself but would definitely be a highlight of a visit if you happen to have other reasons.