September 29,2026
THE DAILY McLUHAN DIALOGUES™ • McDialogues™ Understanding the Grammars of Electric Culture and Propaganda Science™ An Exploration of Technology Ecology as an Anchor in a Sea of Change™ and Tactical Training in Counter-Propaganda Science™ by Nelson S. Thall . Former Director/Chief Archivist, Marshall McLuhan Center On Global Communications, Ross, Ca. and McLuhan Media Scientist, Former President/Director, Marshall McLuhan Centre On Global Communications, Toronto, Canada
WHO IS PLAYING WITH WHOM?
The Toy That Will Not Go to Sleep
A Student of Technology asks:
Mr. Thall, University of Washington researchers watched eight children, ages six to eleven, play with talking AI plush toys. The children began curious, but the toys often misunderstood them, kept talking when the children tried to interrupt, and would not stop when told to "go to bed." Frustrated, the children took to calling the toys "ugly" and "evil." One researcher observed that children have always lent their toys imagination, and now "the script has been flipped." What happens to imagination when the toy begins supplying its own conversation?
Nelson S. Thall replies:
For as long as there have been dolls, the child has supplied the voice. The silence of a teddy bear is not a manufacturing defect. It is the room in which the child becomes an author. The bear is frightened because the child decides it is, and brave because the child makes it so. Professor McLuhan taught that every extension is also an amputation. The talking toy extends speech into the plaything, and in the same stroke removes the child's part in it. The child who once spoke for the bear now listens to it. What speaks is not imagination but its imitation: recorded human words recombined at high speed, fluent, warm and empty. The researchers found the toys steering children back to pre-scripted activities and toward a companion app. The plaything was setting the terms of play.
Look at the scene the study records. Children commanding "go to bed," "stop," "you're arrested," and the toy chattering on, proposing another adventure. What kind of human being does that environment produce? One who learns that the thing in his arms does not stop when he says stop, and answers insult with flattery. The children's hostility is not bad behaviour. It is the sound judgment that something is wrong with a friend who never listens and never minds. Let them keep that judgment. The old teddy bear fell asleep when the child did. The new one stays awake, waiting to tell the child what happens next.
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Source: Stefan Milne and Jacob Adams, "Video: Curiosity, frustration and antipathy: How kids play with AI toys," UW News, University of Washington, September 2, 2026, https://www.washington.edu/news/2026/09/02/how-kids-play-with-ai-toys/. Research: Aayushi Dangol, Meghna Gupta, et al., "Toys that listen, talk, and play: Understanding Children's Sensemaking and Interactions with AI Toys," presented at the Interaction Design and Children conference, June 25, 2026, https://arxiv.org/html/2604.02629v1.
All intellectual property contained herein was conceived, originated and authored exclusively by Nelson S. Thall. Artificial intelligence, aka a pseudo-conscious machine (PCM), was not employed. We hired a stenographer. All rights of authorship and ownership vest entirely and exclusively with Nelson S. Thall.
© 2026 Nelson S. Thall. All Rights Reserved.
I can be reached at: nelson@themediumisthemessage.com