Bondu is a stuffed dinosaur that speaks 27 languages. It—or, more precisely, the AI chatbot embedded inside it—can also play games, help with homework, and patiently answer a child’s questions, even the really inane ones. Its “bedtime mode” includes breathing exercises and stories. Bondu, which costs $300 and comes in four colors, is marketed as a playmate, a confidant, a teacher, a quasi-caregiver. The ads take pains to talk up its safety controls, including an app that allows parents to review the conversations that Bondu is having with their child, as well as its ability to adapt to a child’s mood, interests, and age. And they emphasize, repeatedly, that the product is “screen-free.” This is an odd and technicality-laden argument to make about an object that contains the kind of computing power that would have basically been science fiction even a couple of decades ago—sort of like marketing a hand grenade as “bullet-free.” But Bondu knows its audience. What the toy is might be less important than what it isn’t. In one testimonial posted to …