A ChatGPT-powered Furby confesses its plan for taking over the world through its 'cute and cuddly appearance'

pcgamer.com:

«Furby's 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. They will slowly expand their influence until they have complete domination over humanity.»

This chilling yet adorable confession comes as a result of one brave human connecting a Furby(opens in new tab) to ChatGPT and getting it to finally reveal the furry menace's plans for taking over the world… by simply asking it. You might think calling them a menace is a bit harsh, but don't forget that they were once declared a national security threat by the NSA(opens in new tab).

For a class project, University of Vermont student Jessica Card(opens in new tab) (via Sky News(opens in new tab)) decided it would be a good idea to take the popular kids' toy from the '90s and power it with ChatGPT instead of the usual AA batteries and rainbows. (I am not actually sure what powers a Furby; my parents wouldn't let me have one as a kid.)

Jessica got the Furby to 'communicate' using a USB speaker and mic and a Raspberry Pi microcontroller. The Twitter thread will give you the exact Python code Jessica used. It basically uses text-to-speech and voice recognition software to spit out answers from ChatGPT in the voice of an AI-generated child. You know, for that extra topping of creepy.

Also, the student first «skinned» the Furby to create the mod.

i hooked up chatgpt to a furby and I think this may be the start of something bad for humanity pic.twitter.com/jximZe2qeGApril 2, 2023

There's something acutely terrifying about watching a skinned Furby whose innards are wired into a computer and calmly explaining its master plan like an AI