Should British troops ever find themselves fighting World War Three, they may be glad of the time they spent with a bad-tempered robot capable of shouting at them in Russian, Arabic and Chinese. The SimStriker is an AI-powered android used to train infantry in everything from full-scale combat to peacekeeping. It can play the role of enemy soldier, traumatised civilian or hostile villager – and like a moody Alexa, it can interact and answer back. If provoked, it can even open fire, Terminator-style, with a pellet gun hidden in its abdomen.

“The idea is to blend the physical and virtual worlds,” says James Crowley, one of two former Royal Marines who set up 4GD, the aerospace tech firm behind SimStriker.