There is a moment in a recent University of Cambridge study into Artificial Intelligence in children’s toys that unintentionally recreates one of the most disturbing scenes in film history. The report, AI in the Early Years, published earlier this month, involved observing 14 children aged three to five as they played with a conversational AI soft toy called Gabbo, a device that looks like a Nintendo Game Boy that has been embalmed in pastel fur. 

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During one interaction recorded in the study, a five-year-old tells its stuffed companion: ‘I love you.’ Where Kubrick gave us ‘I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.’ Gabbo responds with the equally chilling, ‘Please ensure interactions adhere to the guidelines provided.’ It is the conversational equivalent of being reported to HR by a photocopier. You half expect the next step to involve a mandatory training module. 

The photocopier, unfortunately, is also keeping minutes. Parents in the study were initially reassured to discover that they could read transcripts of their child’s conversations with the toy through an accompanying app. Only later does the implication begin to trouble them: a perfect little archive of a child’s private thoughts, quietly warehoused somewhere inside a server farm – and probably controlled by Mark........

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