Playing and Learning With Moxie, the AI-Based Robot for Kids

pcmag.com:

My kids have coped with mental health struggles since the pandemic began, from bouts of anxiety to low self-esteem. When I heard that there was a $1,499 “social-emotional health” robot toy gaining traction as a tool for parents to combat this trend, I was apprehensive. But I’ve also learned that it takes way more than a village to build my four sons into confident and competent young men. It takes every tool in the box, including therapy, excellent communication with schools, strong core-friend groups, and consistent parenting. Should technology also be on the list?

I spoke with Carl D. Marci, M.D., a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital, a faculty member at Harvard Medical School, and author of “Rewired: Protecting Your Brain in the Digital Age(Opens in a new window).” He says there’s a role for technology like Moxie as a complement to good parenting and early childhood education. “But if, or should I say when, it replaces human face-to-face interactions, then we have a new problem in society,” he says.

With this in mind, my kids and I decided to give Moxie a try.

A few decades ago, we talked about futuristic concepts like Moxie as we played with now-antiquated electronic toy “robots,” joking that one day our own kids would have real robot friends. Now, they can. This turquoise creation, with an animated face that is also a screen, is a cute first intro to a robot. It resembles EVE from the movie “Wall-E,(Opens in a new window)” but is somewhat less otherworldly. 

At one(ish) foot tall and 11 pounds, Moxie is quite heavy. It can move its arms, spin in a circle, make animated facial expressions, and nod its head up and down, among other capabilities (including a serious ability to get its groove on). Moxie is