I was in the house a couple of weeks ago when I kept hearing a voice coming from upstairs every so often I couldn't track down because it never happened when I was up there.

I had forgotten my son bought the Nintendo Talking Flower: https://www.nintendo.com/au/products/talking-flower/ Usually his door is closed when he leaves but that day it had been left open.

Which is to say, nowadays we have some toys that spontaneously speak in the middle of the day with no input too, by design. It didn't "freak me out" or anything, it was clearly an electronic sound from a speaker. Did make me ponder the idea of leaving some sort of speaker with a software-defined-radio wired into the mains so I could do a drive by of my old house a few years later and start transmitting things into it around Halloween or something, though.

One wonders, how the engagement economy will transfer the talking toy industry. A/B testing has confirmed that screaming "Fire!" or yelling "Everybody on the floor, this is a robbery!" - creates instantanious engagement and is thus superior to classic toys engagement.