A baby giggles in her crib, eyes locked on the voice calling her name.

She babbles, and a soft plastic robot with blinking eyes responds instantly — mimicking her sounds, reflecting her emotions, keeping perfect time.

She smiles.

And keeps smiling.

Except there’s no one there.

This isn’t a scene from “Black Mirror,” but the next frontier of artificial intelligence. And we’re sleepwalking into it.

As policymakers weigh age-verification laws and schools debate tech rules, we’re ignoring the very start of the developmental timeline.

Meanwhile, the AI market is sprinting toward our youngest citizens .

OpenAI recently announced a partnership with Mattel to bring “age-appropriate” AI toys to market, and xAI has introduced Baby Grok, a chatbot for 6-year-olds. Infant-directed versions

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