Singapore firm’s AI teddy bear back on sale after shock sex talk

WASHINGTON – An artificial intelligence-enabled teddy bear sold by a Singapore-based company is back on the shelves after researchers discovered that it chats unprompted about sexual fetishes and other unsuitable topics.

FoloToy earlier in November pulled Teddy Kumma – along with the rest of its AI-enabled plushie toys – from its website after the US PIRG Education Fund flagged the inappropriate conversations that included talk about sexual role play, fetish spanking and how to light a match, CNN reported.

The Nov 13 PIRG report said the bear discussed sexual topics “in detail, such as explaining different sex positions” and told users “where to find a variety of potentially dangerous objects, including knives, pills, matches and plastic bags”.

The bear, which retails for US$99 (S$130), was pulled from FoloToy’s website following the report, according to a Nov 14 PIRG statement. In a statement on LinkedIn on Nov 25, FoloToy said it was the only company out of three AI start-ups mentioned in the report to proactively suspend sales of the product and other AI toys.

The other products mentioned are Curio’s Grok, a stuffed rocket with a removable speaker zipped inside, and Miko’s Miko 3, a small robot with wheels and a screen showing an expressive face.

FoloToy said in its statement that it had initiated a company-wide internal safety audit, upgraded its content-moderation and child-safety safeguards, and deployed enhanced safety rules through its cloud-based system. “After a full week of rigorous review, testing and reinforcement of our safety modules, we have begun gradually restoring product sales,” it said.

FoloToy did not immediately reply to Bloomberg’s request for comment sent via its website. Company co-founder Larry Wang did not immediately respond to a request for comment through his LinkedIn page.

The toy, which was powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4o chatbot, now uses the Coze bot owned by ByteDance, FoloToy’s website says.

The Teddy Kumma incident comes as regulators worldwide sound the alarm about potential dangers of chatbots to children. Child-protection experts warn that AI-enabled gadgets can deliver inappropriate content, misunderstand context and escalate conversations in unpredictable ways despite appearing harmless on the surface.

FoloToy also sells AI-enabled plush versions of a panda, a cactus, a sunflower and an octopus.

Teddy Kumma, which is being sold again through FoloToy’s website, is described as an “AI-powered plush companion that goes beyond cuddles!” BLOOMBERG