Anyone who has watched a child have an animated conversation with a doll — or a stuffed animal, a toy car or a Lego brick for that matter — has probably wondered what that child is really thinking. As the pioneering developmental psychologist Jean Piaget wrote in his book ‘‘The Child’s Conception of the World,’’ published in 1929, ‘‘Does the child attribute consciousness to the objects which surround him, and in what measure?’’
This question has only grown more intriguing with the advent of toys that, rather than waiting for a child’s imagination to animate them, use technology to seemingly attain consciousness all on their own. In the late 1990s, Noel Sharkey, a professor at the University of Sheffield in England who studies the ethics of robotics, saw how this could play out when one of his daughters, who was around 8 at the time, started interacting with one of the first-ever artificial-intelligence-powered toys — a virtual pet called Tamagotchi. An egg-shaped computer that fit in the palm of her hand, the Tamagotchi had a tiny screen to express what it needed and wanted. Sharkey’s daughter periodically pressed a button to give the Tamagotchi food; she played simple games to boost her pet’s happiness levels; she took the pet to the toilet when the screen indicated that it needed to relieve itself. Tamagotchi’s creators had programmed it to demand an ever-increasing amount of attention, and a failure to deliver this caused the pet to become sick. ‘‘We had to break it away from my daughter in the end, because she was obsessed with it,’’ Sharkey says. ‘‘It was like, ‘Oh, my God, my Tamagotchi is going to die.’ ’’
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‘‘Hey, new question,’’ Barbie said. ‘‘Do you have any sisters?’’
‘‘Yeah,’’ Tiara said. ‘‘I only have one.’’
‘‘What’s something nice that your sister does for you?’’ Barbie asked.
‘She does nothing nice to me,’’ Tiara said tensely.
Barbie forged ahead. ‘‘Well, what is the last nice thing your sister did?’’
‘‘She helped me with my project — and then she destroyed it.’’
‘‘Oh, yeah, tell me more!’’ Barbie said, oblivious to Tiara’s unhappiness.
‘‘That’s it, Barbie,’’ Tiara said.
‘‘Have you told your sister lately how cool she is?’’
‘‘No. She is not cool,’’ Tiara said, gritting her teeth.
‘‘You never know, she might appreciate hearing it,’’ Barbie said.