Deon, a fictional engineer in the 2015 sci-fi film Chappie, wants to create a machine that can think and feel. To this end, he writes an artificial-intelligence program that can learn like a child.

Gen Z'ers are constantly stereotyped as being children in adult bodies who lack even the most basic life skills, but it seems there may be a bit of truth to that perception. So much so, in fact, that ...