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Show HN: AI toy I worked on is in stores

(www.walmart.com)
156 points Sean-Der | 14 comments | 12 Oct 25 14:15 UTC | HN request time: 0.643s | source | bottom

Alt link: https://mrchristmas.com/products/santas-magical-telephone

Video demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z7QJxZWFQg

The first time I talked with AI santa and it responded with a joke I was HOOKED. The fun/nonsense doesn't click until you try it yourself. What's even more exciting is you can build it yourself:

libpeer: https://github.com/sepfy/libpeer

pion: https://github.com/pion/webrtc

Then go do all your fun logic in your Pion server. Connect to any Voice AI provider, or roll your own via Open Source. Anything is possible.

If you have questions or hit any roadblocks I would love to help you. I have lots of hardware snippets on my GitHub: https://github.com/sean-der.

1. mosura ◴[13 Oct 25 22:12 UTC] No.45573883[source]▶
I can’t help feeling this technology will end up more widely deployed for a related but less wholesome application.
replies(4): >>45574277 #>>45574409 #>>45574438 #>>45575200 #
2. BeetleB ◴[13 Oct 25 23:05 UTC] No.45574277[source]▶
Are 1-900 numbers still a thing? Are all those people going to lose their jobs?

And the really scary question: Am I to be sad if they do?

replies(1): >>45585252 #
3. andrepd ◴[13 Oct 25 23:23 UTC] No.45574409[source]▶
I swear to god, people need to stop trying to go for 100% completion in turning every Black Mirror episode into reality.
replies(1): >>45575275 #
4. tom1337 ◴[13 Oct 25 23:26 UTC] No.45574438[source]▶
I might be stupid but what are you referring to?
replies(2): >>45574533 #>>45574975 #
5. RodgerTheGreat ◴[13 Oct 25 23:40 UTC] No.45574533[source]▶
Use your imagination a little; I'm sure you can come up with several variants that are an even viler and more exploitative/manipulative idea than the product as it stands.

Let your kid call a crude simulacrum of dead relatives, let religious folks call a crude simulacrum of $DEITY, make an "adult" version that crudely simulates a phone-sex hotline (charge extra to recharge the minutes on that one obviously), etc, etc.

replies(1): >>45575750 #
6. Gigachad ◴[14 Oct 25 00:47 UTC] No.45574975[source]▶
AI powered grandma scammers which can exactly mimic their grandsons voice asking for money.
replies(1): >>45579222 #
7. Sean-Der ◴[14 Oct 25 01:19 UTC] No.45575200[source]▶
It's already happening! I went to https://vapi.ai/vapicon and the stuff that people are already building is bonkers.

It would be naive to think that this technology would only be used for good. I have been working on Pion WebRTC for years though and have see lots of stuff getting built that didn't feel great. Not sure what I can do though.

replies(1): >>45575639 #
8. dylan604 ◴[14 Oct 25 01:29 UTC] No.45575275[source]▶
I think it's more of a speed run really. I'm waiting for Santa to start suggesting that the kid could have more presents if it weren't for those pesky siblings type of nonsense
9. RyanOD ◴[14 Oct 25 02:30 UTC] No.45575639[source]▶
Care to share some examples? I'm curious...
replies(1): >>45575727 #
10. Sean-Der ◴[14 Oct 25 02:45 UTC] No.45575727{3}[source]▶
Vapicon or Pion examples?
replies(1): >>45575771 #
11. Spivak ◴[14 Oct 25 02:50 UTC] No.45575750{3}[source]▶
> make an "adult" version that crudely simulates a phone-sex hotline

This is a quaint almost vintage version of the technology that already exists. Why stop at just audio when you can right now have a "video call" with your AI sexbot? If you were worried porn was going to lose it's top spot for pushing technology forward—and backward and forward and backward—to it's eventual climax then worry no more!

12. noman-land ◴[14 Oct 25 02:53 UTC] No.45575771{4}[source]▶
Yes.
13. datadrivenangel ◴[14 Oct 25 12:26 UTC] No.45579222{3}[source]▶
Already complete.
14. dragonwriter ◴[14 Oct 25 21:31 UTC] No.45585252[source]▶
> Are 1-900 numbers still a thing? Are all those people going to lose their jobs?

IIRC, the 900 “area code” is still reserved for that kind of calling in the North American Numbering Plan, but all of the US carriers have withdrawn from doing pass-on billing for 900 calls (in part, IIRC, because the government prohibited them from disconnecting service for nonpayment of those charges), so I don’t think they’ve been a significant business for a while, and most of that kind of business has moved to various online platforms.