I have numerous concerns with adding a robot to my household, but one of the primary reasons is that anything that makes us more sedentary is bad. As a type 1 diabetic, exercise and daily activity is a huge part of my management routine, and I'm probably more aware of the negative effects of sedation than most people, as I get continuous real-time feedback from my cgm. Household chores like mowing and splitting wood are not only an important part of taking care of the house, but also one of the ways that I keep my body in balance. If I take that away by letting a robot do it all for me, and end up just sitting around instead, my physical health would immediately decline.

There's also a mental and societal aspect to it. Humans are designed to do work. When we remove that from the equation, we take with it our sense of self-worth and satisfaction in accomplishing a task. Even the menial chores as part of a routine help us get through the day. If we eliminate that entirely, we're going to see a rise in depression and other mental illness, and the useless and lazy portion of society will also increase.

No robots for me.

Back when robots were science fiction fantasy only, one of the things authors identified as possible drawbacks (among many) was the likelihood that they would only enhance the effects of the sedentary and lazy lifestyle. Common advice for older people is to remain active even in small ways and in as many ways as possible, including physically. That’s no guarantee of good physical and mental health because blind, indifferent chance affects our entire lives, but although doing things right doesn’t ensure success, doing things wrong surely ensures failure.

I no doubt have benefited from the genetic lottery, but I also have no doubt that I am able to do the things I do at my age in large part because I continued doing them long after most people do them at my age.

“Oh, I would never allow myself to become like that.” Maybe not, but it’s far easier to say we would avoid temptation than it is to avoid it.

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Originally posted by 92fstech:

No robots for me.

Same for me and the wife, for pretty much the same reasons.

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Originally posted by Doc H.:

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Originally posted by SpinZone:
I won¡t buy the 1st edition, but if it can mow the grass, hell yea.

Wish granted...

My lawn being mowed by Gort, far too wet to put a tractor on it...

Dream killed. Only 7/28/26, the FCC blocked the import and sale of foreign-made robotic lawnmowers due to national security concerns over data collection, mapping, and foreign software vulnerabilities. Existing lawnmowers already in country can be sold and get updates, but no new ones. FCC communications on it.

Just think of the information that could be collected by robots in homes. Makes concern about Flock cameras seem trivial.

There was a time when people wouldn’t get in an elevator that didn’t have a human running it.

Life 50 or 75 years from now would be unrecognizable to us.

Great comments, thoughtful and humorous. Keep 'em coming!

I recall in the late 40s getting a manual dasher washing machine for clothes - it has separate rollers to squeeze water out as well!!

The process of boiling the clothes in an iron cauldron with home-made lye soap became a thing of the past!

The act of hanging clothes on a wire clothesline also disappeared with the advent of dryers... somehow, the fresh smell of line-dried clothes is not duplicated by the perfumes added now-a- days.

We are facing a brave new world - be ready for it!!

California will pass laws requiring robot owners to pay money into a robot maintenance fund.

Most of the money collected will go to political appointees managing the fund.

I think they would be more valuable in industry and military applications. I can see a demand for hard wiring into each robot something along the lines of Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics” at some point too.

If it could cook clean and do laundry I would consider it but Until i see of them doing all that work in an efficient manner. Its a no from me.

I want a steak , baked potato, and a salad and the steak better be medium!

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I think they would be more valuable in industry and military applications.

I think Elon is going to have these things doing work on the moon and Mars.

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I can see a demand for hard wiring into each robot something along the lines of Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics” at some point too.

We've already seen how this has worked with AI.

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Originally posted by BB61:
I can see a demand for hard wiring into each robot something along the lines of Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics” at some point too.

Asimov’s I, Robot series was brilliant, as was the “three laws” concept, but other authors and thinkers pointed out that the laws are not as likely to be in humanity’s overall benefit as they seem at first. As I’ve mentioned before, an all-controlling robot (AI) might reasonably decide that many things—such as eating our medium steaks—are harmful to ourselves and therefore must not be permitted.

I don’t believe we have any way of anticipating how the robot revolution (i.e., AI) is going to affect our societies and ways of life in the long run.

^^^^
The use of AI today is no different than “high capacity” magazines or calling an AR-15 an assault rifle. At its core, AI means a sentient artificial intelligence- think Data from STNG. We have better search engines but AI, no.