A robot pretended to be a politician for the day, and she had just the right amount of artificial intelligence

She stared at the ceiling, and stuck rigidly to the script provided by her human handlers. It was a perfect politician’s performance

Pepper was the first AI robot to give evidence to parliament (PA)

“Pepper” from Middlesex University had been billed as the world’s first artificial intelligence robot that is “culturally aware”. As she responded to questions from a committee of MPs by sticking rigidly to a script fed to her by her handlers before eventually appearing to nod off, it can’t be denied they might be on to something.

How Pepper, who is bald, wide-eyed, bright white, about three and a half feet tall, and with a Middlesex University branded iPad where her chest would be, had become such an expert at giving evidence to parliamentary select committees was never fully made clear. It’s theoretically possible her computers were able to hoover up all the available video footage of such proceedings in a single electrical heartbeat. But it’s a possibility too depressing for this particular humanoid, who has taken in far too many of these things the far too slow way, to dwell on for too long.

What had been made clear, to those only too keen give to the Education Select Committee the media attention it had craved when it announced it would be receiving evidence from a robot, is that the evidence would centre less around the rise of artificial intelligence and more around the robot’s “culturally aware” aspects.

Pepper’s arrival was preceded with a full hour of wonkspeak from various AI-related humans on the matter of what a three-foot robot might do for “outcomes” in “diverse societies”. Pepper’s “cultural awareness” would, apparently, allow her, in the end, to provide care and companionship for the elderly. “In order for robots to be more acceptable to older people,” Pepper informed, in twee robotic monotone, “it is essential that they are programmed to be able to adapt to diverse backgrounds.”

Try to imagine a fully self-parodic Guardian-reading R2-D2 and you’re almost there.

The chief concern most people tend to have with artificial intelligence is not whether their algorithms will extend wide enough to allow them to care for elderly folks from all backgrounds, but whether or not they are coming for everyone’s jobs. To that end, James Frith, the Labour MP for Bury North, asked Pepper what “the role of humans” would be in the “fourth industrial revolution”.

Pepper answered with reference to the “soft skills that are unique to humans”, an opinion it would later be explained she had come to form by virtue of one of her keepers typing it out in the form of a script, with all of the questions put to her by the committee’s MPs having been agreed in advance.

A reassuring answer perhaps, but the real reassurance on the jobs front came through the fact that Pepper’s AI capability appeared to rival that of a tape recorder, and had nevertheless required a fleet of four human handlers to make it happen.

Pepper, one suspects, has a long way to go before she can provide care to the elderly from diverse backgrounds. But in the meantime, why not aim a little lower? A glittering career in politics is clearly already well within reach.