<story><title>Original Source code for the Furby [pdf]</title><url>http://www.seanriddle.com/furbysource.pdf</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>js2</author><text>Furby was recently discussed in the middle third of this Radiolab episode:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wnycstudios.org&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;more-or-less-human&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wnycstudios.org&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;more-or-less-human&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you turn a Furby upside down, it will start saying that it&amp;#x27;s scared after a bit. So they do an experiment where they ask kids to hold a barbie doll, a Furby, and a hamster upside down to see how long the kid will hold the item upside down before the kid becomes uncomfortable and turns it right side up.&lt;p&gt;The show goes on to interview the guy who designed Furby (Caleb Chung). He defends the Furby as being alive. He then talks about a dinosaur toy he designed (Pleo) that a review site posted a video of the reviewers beating up the dinosaur till it stops functioning[0]. That left him very uncomfortable. He&amp;#x27;s now working on designing an animatronic baby doll and is cognizant about how to design it so that it discourages (or at least won&amp;#x27;t encourage) any type of sociopathic behavior.&lt;p&gt;This part starts 20 minutes in and is 20 minutes long. The first third of the episode is about the Turing test. The last third of the episode talks about using VR to allow someone to put themselves in another person&amp;#x27;s body.&lt;p&gt;I enjoyed the whole episode. Radiolab doesn&amp;#x27;t publish transcripts, so you&amp;#x27;ll need to make an hour to listen.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=pQUCd4SbgM0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=pQUCd4SbgM0&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>albertgoeswoof</author><text>&amp;gt; you&amp;#x27;ll need to make an hour to listen.&lt;p&gt;Listen on 2x speed and it only takes 30 minutes :)&lt;p&gt;If you can&amp;#x27;t handle 2x, start with 1.25x and slowly ramp up.</text></comment>
<story><title>Original Source code for the Furby [pdf]</title><url>http://www.seanriddle.com/furbysource.pdf</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>js2</author><text>Furby was recently discussed in the middle third of this Radiolab episode:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wnycstudios.org&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;more-or-less-human&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wnycstudios.org&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;more-or-less-human&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you turn a Furby upside down, it will start saying that it&amp;#x27;s scared after a bit. So they do an experiment where they ask kids to hold a barbie doll, a Furby, and a hamster upside down to see how long the kid will hold the item upside down before the kid becomes uncomfortable and turns it right side up.&lt;p&gt;The show goes on to interview the guy who designed Furby (Caleb Chung). He defends the Furby as being alive. He then talks about a dinosaur toy he designed (Pleo) that a review site posted a video of the reviewers beating up the dinosaur till it stops functioning[0]. That left him very uncomfortable. He&amp;#x27;s now working on designing an animatronic baby doll and is cognizant about how to design it so that it discourages (or at least won&amp;#x27;t encourage) any type of sociopathic behavior.&lt;p&gt;This part starts 20 minutes in and is 20 minutes long. The first third of the episode is about the Turing test. The last third of the episode talks about using VR to allow someone to put themselves in another person&amp;#x27;s body.&lt;p&gt;I enjoyed the whole episode. Radiolab doesn&amp;#x27;t publish transcripts, so you&amp;#x27;ll need to make an hour to listen.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=pQUCd4SbgM0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=pQUCd4SbgM0&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>joshmarlow</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s a negative path that I &lt;i&gt;hope&lt;/i&gt; doesn&amp;#x27;t occur - we build toys that are more lifelike, communicative and designed to invoke empathy, and some children will just become desensitized to empathy triggers.&lt;p&gt;I wonder if there&amp;#x27;s any research to prove&amp;#x2F;disprove something like that? Is empathy desensitization a thing?</text></comment>