What happens when technology starts talking to us? When objects in our homes take on human voices and engage us in conversation? Not the magic of talking teapots or conversational candlesticks but the increasingly mundane reality of smart speakers and Voice Assistants. Who or what do we think we’re talking to? Who is listening and for what purposes? It’s ten years since the first smart speaker, the Amazon Echo, entered our homes. Now over 50% of households own at least one smart speaker. This means that millions of children and young people are using these technologies, and their experience of technology itself is being shaped to some extent by the fact that technology can talk. So what does it mean if children grow up with machines they can have meaningful conversations with? What will they share with them? Will they see them as friend or confidante, assistant or annoyance? Human? Animal? Ghost? Lewis Heriz, audiovisual artist, animator and creative lead for Fully Human, has been considering the subject of artificial intelligence, and AI ethics, for some time and as an animator brings a unique perspective to the conversation about AI and voice, as seen in his award winning film So Long We Dreamt of This. We teamed up to explore the questions posed by smart speakers and voice assistants through an ongoing project called 'Speaking Machines'. We've been designing and running workshops with young people to find out what they think and feel about these technologies and will be digging deeper into this over the coming year. We spoke about the project, animation, conversational AI and our hopes for the future for the launch of Tomorrow is the Question, our new Fully Human podcast.