the plush march of the cuddly machines

I'm writing a novel about the inventor from Coin, who gets tangled up in another adventure, which involves Artificial Intelligence and HCCI (Human to Computer, to Computer to Human Interfacing). 

It deals with some of the issues to make the HCCI work, as well as the march of militarised robotics. 

 I was looking at the Chinese systems, like the one that looks like an old-school petrol pump, but can be used for facial capture/surveillance. I noticed that the Chinese have another system like a kid's motorised car, and they were deploying it in Wuhan after the virus subsided so that they could yell at people not wearing face masks. 

 I wondered about humanising the systems so that they are more readily accepted, but then I saw the above cuddly toy, available in Wal-Mart and Giant in the USA. 

It's a cuddly toy replica of the Marty robots that are being deployed as aisle monitors in an increasing number of US stores. They say that the devices are only good at monitoring spillages, but it wouldn't take much to add a few cameras and Bluetooth scanners. I'm not sure how I'd react to one of these peeking around the aisle or coming toward me.

Oh yes, and there's another type that looks suspiciously like Daleks. I'll find a picture later.