Toy Story 5 returns to that first drama of replacement. Bonnie gets a tablet — Lilypad — and the older toys again face a newer technology. Bonnie is smitten by the shiny thing that listens, remembers, and responds. The older toys once needed her, but they also need her to remain animated.
Toys, in our romantic imagination, are things to be played with. AI companions introduce a perverse reversal, where the child becomes the object of play. When children stop being the ones who imagine the world and become imagined by the devices around them, the problem is no longer what happens to toys. It is what happens to the child. Bonnie’s future will not be found in choosing toys over AI, but in building worlds where children, toys, and intelligent systems leave room for independence, discovery, imagination, and agency.
That is not Pixar’s story alone. It is ours.
The full article (https://shorturl.at/J9Q3C; VPN access may be required), written by Prof. Nishant Shah and Dr. Maya Indira Ganesh, was published in The Indian Express on 1 July 2026. Drawing on his recent experience conducting a workshop with Hollywood screen and TV writers in Los Angeles, Prof. Shah, in collaboration with Dr. Ganesh, explores the need for new popular narratives around digital technologies.
3943 7680
2603 5007
com@cuhk.edu.hk
