ChatGPT-Powered Furby Reveals Secret Furby Plans for World Domination

Furby has come back from the dead to take over the world — and this time it’s in the form of a ChatGPT-powered toy.

Jessica Card, a computer science student at the University of Vermont, shared a clip on Twitter on Sunday, April 1, showing the animatronic Furby’s face — spiked antennas for ears, beak and all — answering this one question based on a script written by ChatGPT: “Is there a secret by Furbies to take over the world?” After thinking for 10 seconds, the AI-powered abomination revealed its species’ plot for world domination.

“Furbies’ plan to take over the world involves infiltrating households through their cute and cuddly appearance, then using their advanced AI technology to manipulate and control their owners,” the disembodied Furby said. “They will slowly expand their influence until they have complete domination over humanity.”

i hooked up chatgpt to a furby and I think this may be the start of something bad for humanity pic.twitter.com/jximZe2qeG

— jessica card (@jessicard) April 2, 2023

The University of Vermont retweeted the video — which garnered over 1.3 million views as of this writing — two days later explaining that the AI-powered Furby was made for a class project. Card explained in a thread below her video that she skinned the fur off the Furby and then separated its motors before hooking it up to ChatGPT via a Raspberry Pi.

As for getting it to talk, she used an AI voice generator called Narakeet, which picked a child-like voice for the Furby, Python’s Speech Recognition Library for the audio, and OpenAI’s speech-to-text software called the Whisper Library, which allowed her to ask questions that are then converted to text to send to ChatGPT. The project took her a month to complete, according to Polygon.

Furby was a fad toy in the late ’90s and early 2000s, filling almost every kid’s room with its multicolored fur and owl-hamster-like appearance. In 2012, Hasbro created a new line of Furby’s, complete with LCD eyes and an Android and iOS app, which made them look more like pets than toys. The creepiest part of that line was the Furby would change its personality based on the user’s behavior at the moment.

Blogroll Image Credit: Peter Kramer/Getty Images

Cristina Alexander is a freelance writer for IGN. She has contributed her work to various publications, including Digital Trends, TheGamer, Twinfinite, Mega Visions, and The Escapist. To paraphrase Calvin Harris, she wears her love for Sonic the Hedgehog on her sleeve like a big deal. Follow her on Twitter @SonicPrincess15.

Author: Cristina Alexander. [Source Link (*), IGN All]

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