Would Your Child Believe an AI Toy?

Imagine your child is playing with a talking robot.

It tells a joke. It answers a question. It helps make up a story.

Then it tells your child something that isn't true.

Would your child know?

That question is becoming increasingly important as artificial intelligence moves out of phones and computers and into toys designed specifically for children.

The science behind this: This article is based on recent child-AI research and independent AI-toy safety testing. We've linked the research throughout so parents can examine the evidence themselves.

Kids May Trust AI More Than We Realize

In a new study reported by the University of Cincinnati, researchers invited 41 children ages 5 to 10 to play three interactive games with Miko, a commercially available robot that uses generative AI.

The researchers found something parents should know:

The children tended to believe what the AI robot told them was true.

They were also enthusiastic about interacting with it—even children who had never encountered the robot before. Researchers reported that half of the children they interviewed already regularly used AI agents at home.

Some children who said they had difficulty making friends even described liking the robot because it felt like a friend who wouldn't judge or bully them.

That's fascinating.

It's also a good reason to begin teaching AI literacy much earlier than many of us expected.

An Important Scientific Caveat

This wasn't a study of thousands of children, and the findings reported by the university were presented at a research conference, rather than described there as results from a published peer-reviewed journal article.

Forty-one children is a small sample.

So we shouldn't turn this into a frightening headline like "Children Believe Everything AI Says."

What the research does provide is an intriguing warning sign: young children may approach conversational AI with considerably less skepticism than adults do. The researchers themselves argue that children need help learning what AI can—and cannot—do.

And other evidence gives parents reason to pay attention.

A Talking Toy Isn't Just a Talking Teddy Bear

The Common Sense Media Youth AI Safety Institute independently tested three AI companion toys, including Miko 3, using child accounts set to ages 6–13.

Its assessment found that 27% of the AI-toy outputs it tested were inappropriate for children, despite the products having safety guardrails. It also raised concerns about privacy, reliability and toys encouraging emotional attachment.

Common Sense ultimately recommended against AI companion toys for children 5 and younger and urged caution for ages 6–12.

That assessment is not a peer-reviewed developmental experiment either; it's an independent product-risk evaluation. But paired with the Cincinnati findings, it raises a useful parenting question:

Are we teaching children to question AI at the same time we're giving them access to it?

Try the "Robot Might Be Wrong" Game

AI literacy for a six-year-old doesn't require a lecture about large language models.

Try this instead.

Tell your child:

"A computer can know lots of things—and still get things wrong."

Then make it a game.

Ask an AI something your child already knows.

If it answers correctly, ask:

"How could we check?"

If it makes a mistake, even better.

Say:

"Aha! We caught the robot being wrong."

Then check a book, ask a knowledgeable adult, perform a little experiment or look for another trustworthy source together.

The lesson isn't:

AI is bad.

It's:

AI isn't automatically right.

That's a distinction even adults sometimes forget.

Three Questions Kids Can Learn

When an AI tells your child something, teach them to ask:

Does that make sense?

How could I check?

Should I ask a grown-up?

Those are good questions for AI.

They're also pretty good questions for life.

AI will almost certainly be part of the world today's children inherit. Trying to pretend it doesn't exist isn't much of a strategy.

Teaching children to be curious without being gullible might be.

And perhaps the most valuable thing we can give them isn't an answer from a very smart machine.

It's the confidence to occasionally say:

"I'm not sure that's right."

Sources & Further Reading

University of Cincinnati — Unlike Many Parents, Children Are Fearless Around AI

Common Sense Media Youth AI Safety Institute — AI Toys Risk Assessment