Grimes is getting into the toy business with “Grok,” a character she voiced for Curio's new line of screenless ai plushies.
The toy is not affiliated with the ai chatbot backed by Grimes' ex, Elon Musk, who is also named Grok. Musk described xAI's Grok as having a “rebellious streak” and a willingness to answer “spicy questions that are rejected by most other ai systems.” It will be vulgar if you ask.
Grok, Gabbo and Grem, on the other hand, are designed to encourage play. In conversation with Curio founders Misha Sallee and Sam Eaton, published on the Curio blogGrimes talked about fostering creativity in children from an early age through dynamic conversations, rather than a static list of prompts.
“I just like the idea of bringing more imagination, or making it easier to access imagination in your current kind of existence rather than just observing it in other existences, like on the screen, or in a movie, or in a book, or something.” like that,” he said.
In Curio announcement videoGrimes said she didn't want her kids “in front of screens” but that she is “very busy.”
Image credits: Curiosity
Curio says the toys can hold full conversations so kids (or adults) can practice their communication skills. There's Grok, an anthropomorphized rocket voiced by Grimes. There's Gabbo, who looks like a stuffed Gameboy with arms and legs. And there's Grem, a cyan bunny with hearts on his cheeks. The beta version of the toys is Available for pre-order through Sunday and are priced at $99 each. They are recommended for children ages 3 to 7: Grimes' oldest child with Musk, named X Æ A-Xii, is 3 years old.
The plush toys will answer questions about how rockets are made, play with the user and encourage children to develop listening and conversation skills. Inside the plush is a rechargeable Wi-Fi connected speaker and microphone, which are connected to an app for parents to set up and monitor interactions with their children.
“When I think about children, my goal is to preserve as many minds as possible from now on, and to what extent can we replace iPads, basically?” Grimes said in the conversation with Eaton and Sallee.
He later added: “I think the more you keep things verbal, the more you force people to use their working memory. There are all these little things that, you know, improve our brain a little bit here and there.”
Grimes became involved with Curio after responding to a mail about the future of ai-embedded toys, where “children's teddy bears will talk to them and make them feel safe at night.” Grimes answered that it would be “great if it were safe” and that he would love for his kids to be able to hang out with a “cultural ship mind in a teddy bear.”
The line launched about a week after Musk's ChatGPT competitor, also called Grok, began rolling out to X Premium Plus subscribers.
“Grimes is doing the voice for the toy, and this is a rocket ship that happens to be called Grok and it predates the Grok ai announcement, so there's a fun overlap there,” Sallee said in the conversation with Grimes.
As Business Insider reportsGrimes' Grok was recorded first.
Curio filed its trademark for Grok on September 12 this year. xAI filed its trademark for Grok on October 23. Curio's Grok is short for Grocket, since Grimes' children spend a lot of time with rockets because his father owns SpaceX, The technology/2023/12/14/grok-grimes-curio-toy/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Washington Post reports.
Grimes and Musk are currently involved in a custody battle over their three children and have filed child custody lawsuits against each other in California and Texas, respectively.
in a mail Referring to the name, Grimes said that by the time Curio realized that xAI's Grok team was also using the name, “it was too late for any of the AIs to change their name.”
“So now there are two AIs named Grok, I can't wait for them to become friends,” he said. “I can't believe even I can't help but show up at school and meet another kid with the same name, haha.”
