On Monday, the prime minister spent the best part of two hours failing to explain why she had bothered to come to the House of Commons to give a statement on the progress of the Brexit negotiations when she didn’t have anything to say. Theresa May crashed and burned into random binary numbers as her circuits overloaded. The four pot plants could have given a better demonstration of intelligent life.

A day later, with a little help from her handlers at Middlesex University, Pepper the robot – a 3ft tall wannabe Star Wars extra – was pushed into the education select committee to show what decent computer programming can achieve. “Good morning,” Pepper said to the Conservative committee chairman, Robert Halfon. “Thank you for inviting me to give evidence today.” The committee looked impressed. This was a more coherent start than many politicians had made.

Pepper then went on thank her sponsors, Japan and the EU. Clearly no one has yet had the heart to tell Pepper she will have her funding cut after Britain leaves the bloc in March and will have to try her luck on universal credit. She went on to explain she was taking part in a three-year programme called Caresses – the screen attached to her torso conveniently flashed up the word “caresses” – pioneering work in culturally aware robotics to deliver care programmes for older people in their homes.

That may depend on just how desperate the older people are. Pepper might have been programmed in all the right sensitivities – she used the word “diverse” several times – but the bottom line is that she’s still quite annoying. And quite limited. Having more empathy than May just isn’t enough. For one thing, Pepper really only seems to have eyes for one of her programmers, Nicholas Fitton, a student, as she spent most of the session staring adoringly at his neck rather than looking at the committee members. And what eyes. Bug eyes that flash with an alarming reddish glow to indicate she’s actually paying attention. Or at least pretending to.

But all this is forgivable compared to her voice. Pepper speaks with the most irritating, synthesised, singsong American accent. How you might imagine Esther McVey would sound if she had been turned into one of the toys in Toy Story that all the other toys couldn’t stand. The relentless, upbeat insensitivity of someone who believes she is doing you a favour when actually she is turfing you out on to the street. When you’re being told there isn’t a human left alive who wants to spend time with you and that you’re probably about to die, the least you want is a robot who doesn’t sound so happy about it.

On the plus side, though, Pepper is self-aware enough to realise her own limitations. Not something you can say about many in Westminster. Pepper understands she doesn’t have a mind of her own and all her responses have been pre-programmed. So she’s more of a performing seal than intelligent life. Not unlike the prime minister, she only really functions when she’s given all the questions in advance and can come out with pre-recorded answers about understanding different interfaces. Close your eyes and you could have been listening to a tape recorder.

It felt like an opportunity missed. Instead of asking worthy questions about robots helping in the classroom, the committee could have cut to the chase. What was the naughtiest thing you’ve ever done? Have you ever run through a wheat field? What are the boy and girl jobs in roboworld? You speak with a woman’s voice, but do you identify as a woman? And then the killer. Is the solution to a backstop to a backstop a frontstop? She couldn’t have come up with anything more meaningless than what the government has said so far.

Having answered her four questions, Pepper fell silent to let the students and a professor of robotics take over. Mostly, she gazed contentedly at Fitton’s neck, but when the proceedings started to drag a bit, she appeared to doze off. All her lights went out and she stood with her head slumped. Maybe she was a bit human after all. Still, she woke up at the end to wave her arms around in the air and thank the committee for having her.

Things got a bit testier at the end of the session, when her companion, Salt the robot, was brought into the room. Pepper looked well pissed that after she had been made to do all the dreary stuff, Salt got to hog the limelight by laughing when her tummy was tickled and dishing out hugs to all-comers. For her pièce de résistance, Salt played some music and started dancing more or less in time. “She’s better than the Maybot,” Halfon said delightedly. “We should have had her at the party conference.” There’s always next year.