This piece is part of The trend is moving forwardour video and podcast series that provides a glimpse into the world where breakthrough technologies are changing the way we live. This week we talk to Arun Gupta, founder and CEO of Hapiko, about that
If you are one of those people who say, “It feels like AI is everywhere,” then you are wrong. Yes, it slides into work and school and other places, but it moves at pace into so many other new worlds.
One of them is the toy department – and that poses frightening risks. For parents, the idea of your child having near-unfiltered access to the internet’s best (and worst) content feels like a total taboo, and yet we’re seeing a proliferation of toys that can turn bedtime stories into real-life Grimm fairy tales.
That’s why we spoke to Aron Gupta, an entrepreneur who has successfully founded companies in wearables and fashion retail. But as he spent time with his family, he began to think about how technology could not only entertain children, but also educate them and encourage their creativity.
Gupta reconnected with his technical partner Robert Whitney and they began developing Stickerbox, a standalone device that uses AI to allow kids to describe the images they imagine – pretty much anything – and see them displayed on the monochrome display on the front before having them printed on demand.
The design is reminiscent of the old Etch a Sketch, and the stickers are printed on a built-in thermal printer, meaning less mess, and kids can then color them however they like.
The concept is simple, and I’ve noticed that it has already moved past the early adopter space and is gaining more and more notoriety. Recently, when talking to a friend in the UK with young children about the sticker box, she said, “Oh, that Etch-a-Sketch AI sticker thing?” I want one of these!’
While I assume What she meant was that she wanted it for her children. This shows that AI is secondary here – the ability to create tangible things with your own voice is something that is fueling the excitement, rather than machine learning being the focus.
A new kind of toy
Stickerbox seems to have been designed, constructed and acted as a clear contrast to some of the other AI toys on the market. The most problematic thing is being your child’s friend and confidant.
They constantly listen to everything that is said around them and can even manipulate children. There are examples of AI toys that show children how to find guns and matches.
And there’s the conflict: AI tools can foster wonder and creativity in children, allowing them to do things that simply weren’t possible before. But this opportunity also comes with incredible risk – and the reason we’re talking to Gupta is simple: How can you make a toy that offers the benefits of AI without the dangers of access?
A recent study published by PIRG highlighted major concerns about toys based on access to LLMs like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and the ways in which these can be circumvented, even when there are guardrails in place.
How is Stickerbox different?
“We started with a very simple question: What if AI was developed for children?” says Gupta.
“I think that when Bob and I started this company, we were very inspired by social media and the influence that social media has had on the younger generation. Social media, everyone knows, was built with casino mechanics to give you that dopamine hit and designed for as much engagement as possible so that it can give you as much as possible.”
“But then when you look at that and think about this model for kids, then… it doesn’t really fit that well. There’s no social media that’s really made for kids. And I think you see the same thing with AI.”
Stickerbox was therefore designed to harness the creative power of AI while being child-safe. There are three specific safety factors: The device only “hears” when the microphone button is pressed; there are strict content security guidelines for output; And parents can fully monitor their children’s creations via the accompanying app.
The box doesn’t allow children to imagine nudity, gore, violence or gore, as Gupta said the company wanted to “start out on the safe side rather than the less safe side.”
Stickerbox does connect to the internet to access AI, but it is a proprietary system and not a piggyback system from OpenAI, as is the case with many other companies. By building its own LLM, Hapiko was able to integrate what Gupta calls “choke points”:
“We have a lot of guardrails built into the box at the moment and it’s a lot of proprietary software, but basically you can think of it this simple: There’s a system where the child speaks a prompt, the prompt is translated into text, the text is translated into an image and the image comes back.”
“So there are several bottlenecks in this process. There’s the bottleneck at the point where the text is created, and you can scan what’s in the text. Then you can do security filtering. (Then) there’s the prompt that goes from the text to the image, and you can scan that and see what’s happening in the image.”
Stickerbox teaches children an important lesson about how to construct their instructions to the artificial intelligence engine. If the sticker isn’t exactly what they want, they’ll need to think about how to edit their prompt to get the result they want.
While you can do the same with any chatbot, the print element requires you to connect hardware and the guiding hand of a parent to oversee the process and perhaps explain some sensitive topics.
We looked deep into the future for this box – how it was received by parents and teachers alike, how they overcame some initial challenges and questions, and what the future might hold in this fast-growing AI toy space… and how Hapiko had to leave out some features in order to safely bring this product to market.
