Kait

Fear of AI is eternal

These Are the Notorious NSA Furby Documents Showing Spy Agency Freaking Out About Embedded AI in Children's Toy

These Are the Notorious NSA Furby Documents Showing Spy Agency Freaking Out About Embedded AI in Children's Toy

“The big curiosity is what medium a Furby uses to record audio,” one employee wrote. “I would assume that since it can ‘respond’ to certain audio cues that it would use storage similar to a digital answering machine or straight computer memory chips. Anybody know?”

Others said “Furby is only a $35 toy and is not that sophisticated. As a previous [listserv] posting pointed out, the ‘learning’ the doll does is programmed into it so that the longer you use it the more it ‘knows.’”

A great reading of newly FOIA'd documents from the folks at 404 Media. I definitely understand the impetus to understate existing rules about banning personal electronics from NSA spaces, but doesn't it also smack somewhat of security by obscurity?

It's always fun to get messages worrying about people FOIA'ing documents in documents you FOIA'ed.