Color me quite unimpressed with the current capabilities. Let’s investigate.
The Coming Robot Home Invasion
In what appears to me to be far more hype than reality, the Wall Street Journal discusses The Coming Robot Home Invasion.
Robots are hot. Humanoid ones were literally running amok at this month’s World Robot Conference in Beijing. Think of robots as artificial intelligence in motion. Maybe you’ve seen Elon Musk’s new Tesla humanoid robot Optimus bust a move in a YouTube dance video. A tad creepy. All I really want is for robots to fold my laundry like Rosey the Robot from “The Jetsons.” Or to watch my kids, shouting “Danger, Will Robinson!” when they’re lost in space.
It’s starting. I recently met with Weave Robotics’ founders, Evan Wineland and Kaan Dogrusoz, friends from Carnegie Mellon and Apple. They showed me live demonstrations of Isaac, their home robot likely priced at more than $10,000, to ship by year’s end. I watched it autonomously fold T-shirts and pick up cups and toys. It’s mesmerizing. Isaac triggered visions of future homes, much as “labor-saving devices” like dishwashers and washing machines changed 1950s home life.
The Cost Reality
“Isaac” is a home robot developed by Weave Robotics, a startup founded by former Apple engineers. While originally hinted to be priced at over $10,000, it’s now available for a refundable $1,000 reservation fee. The full purchase price is $59,000, or a payment plan of $1,385 per month for 48 months. Isaac is slated to begin shipping to its first 30 US customers in the fall of 2025
The Performance Reality
Seriously, “what a joke” is my reaction.
The above video is an infomercial and not a good one. It shows no clips of folding clothes or other household chores the bot can allegedly do. It repeats images of the bot picking up toys on the floor, a roughly 1-minute task.
Watch how clumsy the ironing is in this alternate robot.
Advanced Humanoid Robots
Also consider advanced humanoid robots at 2025 World Robot Conference in Beijing.
China’s Startups Race to Dominate the Coming AI Robot Boom
Bloomberg reports China’s Startups Race to Dominate the Coming AI Robot Boom
That’s a free link.
The country’s startups have caught the attention of Elon Musk, whose Tesla Inc. has set its sights on the humanoid market. On an April conference call, the billionaire said he thinks his Optimus robots lead the industry in performance, but China may end up dominating the field. “I’m a little concerned that on the leaderboard, ranks 2 through 10 will be Chinese companies,” he said.
Leadership in this field matters because humanoids appear poised to move beyond the realms of sci-fi and curiosity. Citigroup Inc. recently projected the market for the machines and related services will surge to $7 trillion by 2050 when the world could be populated by 648 million human-like bots.
Some scholars warn that Beijing’s approach may give China the edge in developing strategically important, capital-intensive sectors, like it has already done with electric vehicles and solar panels.
While it’s still possible the humanoid market never takes off, China is making an audacious bet that it will. The country is on track to produce more than 10,000 humanoid robots this year, or more than half of the machines globally, according to an April study from the China think tank Leaderobot and other institutions.
“China is winning the humanoids war, I have no doubt,” said Henrik I. Christensen, director of the Contextual Robotics Institute at the University of California San Diego.
Still, even the most elegant humanoids won’t have a future unless they provide value. People-like machines captured the popular imagination at least as far back as Isaac Asimov’s writings in the 1950s, yet they’ve remained largely a novelty. Boston Dynamics has impressed tech geeks since its founding in 1992, but it’s never built much of a business. Google and SoftBank Group Corp. each bought the startup and then sold it again without commercial success; it’s now owned by Hyundai Motor Co.
China’s robot was far more impressive than “Isaac” or anything from Tesla. Click on the link to see.
Musk eluded he will be number one. I would be shocked if that happened.
Anyone laying out $58,000 for “Isaac” is someone interested in the latest gadgets at any price.
I suppose this robot home invasion is coming, eventually. But price needs to drop by 90 percent and capabilities rise by 500 percent before there’s a hint of prime time for household tasks.
Industrial robots trained for one specific task are another matter. They are already here.
I side with Romain Moulin, CEO of the French startup Exotec, which makes box-like robots for warehouses that he thinks are more utilitarian.
Humanoids “just don’t make economic sense for most people and companies for the foreseeable future,” said Moulin.
But they do capture the imagination (and dreams of no more household chores) including the futurists at the Wall Street Journal.
Only for making Beef Wellington or vichyssoise, &c.
What was the movie with Megan Fox where the hot female robot seduces its owner? These things can ruin a marriage!
I’ll take a “Rosie” robot like in the Jetsons!
Rather than a humanoid robot, I think there is scope to create machines that will automate specific tasks, for example an ironing machine where you throw laundry at it after drying and it will sort it and iron it. You could also have maybe an oven machine, where you just put the raw foods and it will do the cooking for you.
Robots are already cooking but not as a humanoid.
Most likely humanoid will be useful as a companion for lonely persons.
There is no chance I would be buying additional real estate now with three and half years of this Trump nightmare in front of our economy. We saw what happened last time…
The fact that Trump is militarizing our cities in anticipation of civil unrest is a strong signal that he knows things are not going to go well for the American people.
I am probably a bit early, but it is time to lighten up on my stock portfolio as well.
Worst case is I am sitting on a pile of cash earning a paltry 4.8% interest and a couple dozen quality stocks that pay reliable dividends. My crops will keep growing and bees will keep producing honey. I will continue to care for my family, friends, employees and neighbors.
For many homeowners that lose their jobs and the businesses that fail, I can only hope that they have decent savings and a broad range of skills to carry them through.
All the best!
This is like looking at a 2-year and saying :”that kid will never amount to anything!”. Sheese.
No thanks. I’ve still got work ethic.
To actually be useful for even just doing laundry, a robot would need to be able to do much more than just put clothes into machines and take them out. It needs to be able to go through the home, pick up dirty clothes, carry them to the laundry room, identify material types and sort them correctly and identify appropriate washer and dryer settings and detergent/bleach choices by finding and reading the little tags, open detergent and bleach containers, measure and add detergent and bleach, clean the lint from dryer filter, fold or hanger clothes of multiple types and sizes, and return them to the proper closets and drawers. My daughter gets all this and much more done by a lady to whom she pays about half the monthly cost they quote for these robots, a lady who will not break down out of warranty after four years and require very expensive repair — probably impossible as maker out of business or merged with other firm that discontinued that model, requiring purchase of a new unit at same ongoing cost.
Get serious! Most people dump some soap powder into a washer and throw all the clothes in together.
Under the banner of bots for lazy women and elderly with a walker, our weapon industries need more scientist, engineers and highly pd skilled workers. Demand for “real stuff” is growing. The EU increased its rearmament budget by $600G. Germany: by $150B. Pay attention to what they do, not what they say. $2T total open orders for new weapons. Zelensky will benefit from peace on earth and Ukraine rearmament. Without blowing Fordo Putin and the Europeans would never come. Bot Biden: no chance.
I would never let a robot hold a knife. Especially if you have a set of sharp Japanese knives in your kitchen. Remember HAL from Space Odyssey?
LOL
Rock em sock em robots. metal fists are more punishing than any knife.
Who needs a knife? The robot could crush your windpipe, drown you in the sink, electrocute you, put a pillow over your face.
So can they guarantee that the robots won’t have software back doors that can be hacked? Especially anything with Chinese components.
And the robots will have cameras and microphones to communicate with you. But that means they will record everything you do. Lovemaking, jerking off, watching porn. Perfect for blackmail.
Downsides aside I can see a huge market for us aging boomers. I don’t want a robot to fold my laundry. I want one that will take care of me when I’m elderly and need help washing me, wiping my butt, wiping drool off my chin. Also dedicated home medical care as a robot can constantly monitor me and can call an ambulance if needed.
That will enable people to remain at their home instead of being shipped off to a nursing home. Will make a big difference (loss of jobs) for the nursing industry and save families from being gouged paying for poor quality 24/7 care (with nursing homes leaving patients in soiled Depends and employing low skilled migrants to boost profits.
Sounds like a SciFi script for a thriller, the next generation.
Hacking is a given. Just like Alexa I’ll bet hackers are chomping at the bit to get into these brains. Then they can get the robot to go online and do all their dirty work on the dark web. Do you think people would be dumb enough to trust their robots to remember their account passwords?
I’d be less worried about Chinese bits than the AI chip that listens to and what anyone in the household says and reports deviant thought to big brother.
Not so much in my home.
In farming, robots can be remarkably useful. Spot treating weed infestations early instead of hiring crop dusters and their thousands of gallons of herbicides is a big win! Especially since the bots can have solar panels on their topsides and batteries that carry their work into the night or back to their charging stations.
In underground mining, robots can be remarkably useful. They can work in impossible environments, think heat, humidity and noxious gasses. Larger units can be operated by kids or basement dwellers as if they were gaming terminals!
Totally autonomous small bots can be programmed to recognize ore in the rock and follow the minerals only. This would pre-concentrate the ore, reduce the waste rock removed, thus eliminating hauling and disposal costs.
Anywhere a semi-autonomous robotic terminal is installed can become a workspace.
Fully programmed robots would interact with the fleets of autonomous for recharging and recovery purposes.
Like Mish says regarding long haul trucking, autonomous is far more efficient and gets rid of the labor costs – which are tremendous!
All of it is waiting for solid state batteries and small nuclear reactors to power them.
Google just announced a mini nuclear will run one of their AI data centers.
What to do with the displaced workers is a valid question????????
The correct answer would be “start transitioning to a post scarcity lite society with better social mobility”, but there’s groups who really really don’t want that because anything above wage slavery is blood red communism and whatnot.
John Deere offer small farmers: check soil moisture for vegetables, fruit, grapes blueberries. Cost: a few hundred dollars. Drones for $2k+ to check stress, leaks, nutrition, crop health, pest outbreaks. Adjust irrigation: to reduce water waste. Tractors with GPS for precision planting and spraying..
Contractors: Deere, Case, AGCO, Trimble…no need for bots
I already have a drone for looking at the crops and filters on the cameras that tell me quite a bit about my crops health and watering needs.
Weeds remain a problem that a robot would save huge amounts of herbicides and fuel costs.
>
Aren’t there drones that do this spot weeding or robots that drive over each row spot spraying for weeds?
I’m not for or against this development although I have no plans to participate in the nonsense. I just don’t want government to be involved in any way, especially with subsidies or other incentives.
Well, the Chinese aren’t going to follow that philosophy. They’re going to pay their top engineering minds to go into the field. They’re going to extend financing to the startups created by those engineers. They’re going to build the infrastructure for thousands of related companies to work together to produce these things. They’re going to be the forefront of production for the next couple of centuries at least and will become fabulously wealthy. But at least, we’ll get tax cuts!
Porn drives technology.
Everyone that is human realizes the first addition to an Iron man type suit is the sex package.
Japan has bots for the elderly.
US will be porn bots.
Most of the world is dirt poor so unless a bot can be loaded for data at the beginning or end of every month the po folk ain’t buying a bot.
Bots will be fairly niche except cop or fire or search and rescue bots or those sweet little mosquito assassin bots China is working on.
You got a Roomba you got a bot already.
And that’s why robot utopia will never exist. There are 8 billion people on the planet, most living off of $3/day. We are better off changing immigration laws to leverage all the cheap labor out there than wasting money on one-trick-pony robots.
I’d rather have 2 human maids, a human cook, a human gardener and human chauffeur than 10 robotic ones. This is one of the reasons I’m moving overseas where I can have this army of people for peanuts.
So what exactly is your “exit plan” for when your wageslaves in camaroon or wherever get tired of you? Got ransom?
Lol. The odds of Trump’s gestapo shipping you to El Salvador are higher than getting ransomed where I’m going. Actually the odds of you being gunned down by police/gestapo/terrorists/supremacists/anybody is higher for you than me after I leave. This will be especially true when all the social programs are cut off and people are hungry for money.
But there is no place that is 100% safe so there’s that.
A few years ago some investor guy living in India wrote an article stating he paid women to clip his lawn with scissors.
It was cheap wages for him but for them it was a lot of money.
“most of the world is dirt poor” and “8 billion people… most living off of $3/day”
By crackie, in my day that was so true.
But …
https://ourworldindata.org/poverty
The old Hans Rosling gapminder stuff had fundamental metrics like infant mortality, food calories, etc. on S curves with places like the US at the top right, and Somalia at the bottom left. The bulk of the world’s population zoomed above the middle line in the mid 20-teens. In a sense, the world is like Lake Wobegon. Most people are above average. 🙂 Also, as S curves of this sort tend to be symmetric, 10 years ago the world may have been at the midpoint of the industrial revolution.
Who hates Roomba?
Civilization gave up so much for the lazy impulse to be fawned over and waited on. Whole populations were displaced. We are still paying dearly for that folly. To my mind, it was not a good trade. And remember that short story, The Monkey’s Paw, about not getting precisely what one thought one was bargaining for?
“Ruk! Protect!”
– Dr. Korby, “What Are Little Girls Made Of?”
Funny how in the original series all the androids and robots end up going haywire or being bad (The Changeling, Ultimate Computer, Return of the Archons, The Apple etc) and life forms, especially emotional ones are good/triumphing. But in the Next Generation series, Data is essentially a stand in for Superman (a Dudley do-right), the Holo Deck is a beloved area by all (including some weird romances with AI) and the machines rarely misbehave/are bad, instead it’s always lifeforms that are (Q).
Because Next Generation sucked big time.
Do you recall when DATA was just a dildo for the blonde security officer in one episode?
Interesting. Thanks.
Offhand, I can think only of Professor Moriarty as a single counter example. I haven’t memorized TNG the way I did TOS.
Oh, one more TNG: “Arsenal of Freedom”. It was similar to TOS “That Which Survives”.
If we didn’t have enough chargers for EV cars and we’re crying over rare earths right now, where in the heck are the resources going to come from to build 650 million robots?
But that’s the least of my worries, everyone always showcases the “good” these robots can do but how about this…a neo nazi decides to hack and reprogram one of the bots, loads it up with guns and grenades and sends it off to the nearest temple. Won’t matter if the robot is destroyed after it kills dozens or hundreds because the nazi has another one ready to go. And how easy will it be to figure out who programmed and armed that robot?
But how about robots to go steal stuff? Kidnap kids or women? Whatever your vice, a robot can do the work for you so you don’t have to lift a finger or get hurt.
Lastly, people were burning down Tesla dealerships and vandalizing Tesla cars because of the things DOGE was doing. Imagine if these robots start taking everyone’s job. I can already see the anti-robot marches, factory bombings and other mayhem that will ensue.
All classic variants on the deepest problems of collective action and trust, summarized as: agency costs. Like everything else, the collective attention span and memory are too short and too small, to not bog down yet again in, and relive, variants of the lessons of history. Consumers are suckers if anything.
Who downvoted this and why?
I would have expected a Tesla FSD car bombing by now… but that would require FSD to work properly. I guess we’re safe.
To quote Dennis MIller – We will just have to “weed the herd” until things like that don’t happen any longer.
Is this like the self-driving semis you told us would take over in 5 years almost 20 years ago?
20 years ago would be 2008
Are you that f’ing stupid?
I said in 5 years in 2017 or so.
And by the way, self-driving cars – waymo are here
But yes, I did think Trucks would be first, no later than 2023
But this case is the opposite, where am I promoting robots?
Can you read?
It’s generally better not ban people over their views…but when they put words into people’s mouths…. It’s pretty frustrating to see.
Especially because you’re not a jerk and thus don’t deserve to be treated like one!
Maybe it is time for an update on self driving trucks. I am sure the tech is progressing. I also assume there are huge regulatory issues.
Dylan Mulvaney or Sydney Sweeney? Either way, I’ll have a Yuengling.
You would choose a Yuengling over Sidney Sweeney? You must really love that brand of beer.
Sydney Sweeney vs Gravity, which wins in the long run?
In the long run, we’re all worm food.
That’s why you rent and don’t buy.
Another younger hotter replacement will be along by the time gravity has done it’s work.
I think two women come of age every minute in today’s world.
I got one whose mom stayed hot well into her 70s, and she’s holding up just as well. Makes a nice salary too.
I can’t really stand to hear anybody under 30 talk…. and they get aggro if you don’t let ’em. I guess that’s where the sexbots would come in.
Who hates gravity?
+1
Who downvoted that? F’n people missing a sense of humor!
Room temp Guinness stout. Then again I have not had a drink since 1988 so I have no clue.
After lies about every war, taking away safe medicines and replacing them with experiments, taxing us to “bring back jobs”, lying to us about inflation, not releasing files about the ‘63 coup in Dallas, the Epstein files, 911, etc, yeah, sure. I’d love one of these in my home.
Who am I gonna trust? Putin? The CPC? My rulers told me they’re worse!
Of course I would if the robots work well. It would leave me time to explore more important things like art, philosophy, science, beauty and finding the meaning of the Universe. Doing housework is all that is keeping me from fulfilling my true purpose in life. Can the robot serve me lattés like at Starbuck’s?
HAHAHAHA. Larry Niven wrote books about spacers doing exactly what you said. Then the Expanse books came along and the Belters were just regular low rent folk.
Essentially it will be sex bot until raw.
And when they stop Lidocaine a lot more painful.
You mean Azimov with the I Robot series.
No Larry Niven wrote a number of novels where his spacers spent their spare time getting doctorates.
The Expanse series, and the show is not bad but they screwed up and turned the first book into two seasons then due to #METOO some one was removed and the series ended before the books did, by James S.A.Corey two authors who were mentored by that prick who will never finish his novel series but allowed HBO to.
Expanse is really good if you like Scifi, Neal Asher created a really fine universe as well.
I find it hard to uncover something “unique” these days and people like Terry Pratchett die out.
Jasper Fforde is a fun read as is Ian McDonald.
Or more realistically for most, get drunk/stoned and spend your day gaming, watching sports or doom scrolling on the internet.
Household chores? No.
Pulling weeds in the garden, maybe.
That is why there are children, small hands.
The children I’ve seen in the last 5 years or so can’t even microwave a burrito. They would die of exposure out there in the weeds.
Survival of the fittest. In the end you wind up with the best weeders ever.
Look around you…. natural selection has been suspended for our species for at least 100 years, and it shows.
SME here: I’m not expecting this soon. This kind of stuff is pretty transparently vaporware that exists to scam money out of the AI bubble. Frankly I’ll go for broke and say that the way things are going with the open surveillance state will have people in the near future never wanting anything “smart” in their houses again. Hell, half of it doesn’t work as is. Want to use an app to wash your dishes? I sure as hell don’t. It’s an entirely worthless gimmick that inflates costs and makes repairs impossible (on purpose).
They don’t need a device in your house to surveil you… those are for marketing purposes.
Yeah I’m sure they have a secret beam that can mass surveil every house all at once if you don’t have smart gadgets. Those NSA tools are expensive and time consuming, they don’t have the manpower for running them at scale and if they did it would leak badly. Why would they when idiots will just PAY for it?
That would be your cell phone.
Am browsing thru recent threads and think it’s odd to see quite a few reasonable comments (like yours) with inexplicable negative votes.
Robot demand will explode the moment that they are equipped with REAL Vagina’s and PENISES.
By real, I mean that the equipment has to ooze fluids and be liquid-warmed and swell and so on.
Sales will explode. Another word: SWELL!
Human Hookers will starve.
NOW, extend this to Epstein-Like masters who order CHILD and BEATEN-DOWN-GIRL ROBOTS and the big guys get in on it.
Sorry for my crudeness, but the reality is that SEX SELLS and EVEN THE MASTERS (THE CLINTONS) are gonna be in on it.
Now, let’s extend the tech to ROBOTIC ARMIES.
Humans will be wiped out because SIRI has pissed off so many users that Iphone sales are down.
Wait until SIRI gets pissed at her Handlers.
DEATH follows. Human-kind is doomed.
I really don’t get the robo sex apocalypse idea, despite having heard it a lot at this point. It kind of implies people don’t want to be intimate with each other and if anything the younger generation is much more willing to be intimate (sexually or platonically) and values communication much more than previous generations. Poly relationships are much more common now, and monogamous relationships are growing healthier than the “half of all couples get divorced” statistics of the 70s when women were basically seen as sex robots.
Sex bots exist and are pretty affordable and realistic even now, but why would I want that? Why would anyone want that for more than a weird conversation piece? Toys are one thing, and a $15 tenga will more than do for most, so with that in mind I really don’t see a cyberpunk 2077-esque robo brothel being more than a kind of gross gimmick.
People are already having relationships with AI on their phones, I think this will be a pretty big market.
Please, real life dolls sit in quite a few homes and are giving comfort daily.
The same people getting committed at shocking rates for psychosis? That’s not a huge market lol
Humans are essentially machines to spread their seed far and wide so the variations will exhibit survival states in an ever changing environment.
Your reductionist view of humanity is incredibly mediocre and depressing. I legitimately can’t imagine waking up and going “yeah everyone is just dumb cattle” in a world where you can tour basically every art museum and read any book in human history from the comforts of your own home.
“legitimately can’t imagine waking up and going “yeah everyone is just dumb cattle””
Except every government and business thinks that way.
You are just a number to the rest of the world.
A stat that can be ignored like Toyota did when killing those people instead of replacing a thirty five cent part.
Take a really long look at your life, your bills, your food, your entertainment and explain which companies see you as an individual instead of a product purchaser. A consumer.
I know It was sad for me when I worked out there is always a bigger hammer and I’,m not even the nail head sticking out.
Yeah! We create trash and sewage too!
LMFAO……… and I ‘m not at sentence 2 yet
Thank you another sane person.
Second addition to the Iron Man suit was the sex package.
“How would you like it today Mr.Stark?”
I know you wanted an answer,
“I’ll take the HULKBUSTER Jarvis, the HULKBUSTER NOW!”
Is that you Bender? This is me, Meatbag.
I am interested to hear about Nvdia’s cosmos and “physical AI” (https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/11/nvidia-unveils-new-cosmos-world-models-other-infra-for-physical-applications-of-ai/)
I agree that robots for home are currently vaporware. At the same time, the move in this direction is obvious and if robots can build house, do dishes, make music, make decisions, provide emotional support etc etc – then what will humans do?
What kind of a future are we building today?
Jack Williamson was way ahead of you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_Folded_Hands_…
Also called “The Humanoids”. A prescient book considering it was published in 1949. There is a sequel also.
It’s strange living in the time all that golden age sci fi depicted.
The Humanoids would be far in the future after humans expanded to other star systems.
If you want to read an AI horror story set in present day, check out the Singularity 4-book series by William Hertling.
POLICE! MILITARY! Then fire and rescue finally sex then cleaning.
There already are things you can pay for to do household chores that are 5000 percent more capable and much cheaper than these robots:
You can pay a maid and a lawn guy to do it. Much cheaper and much better.
The Robot doesn’t steal the silverware.
True, but maids and lawn guys almost never steal either. When you have the same guy cut your lawn for decades, stealing isn’t a problem
And the robot may as well steal from you. He’s much more expensive than a maid or lawn guy that steals, including the value of anything stolen.
Tim if you lived in the 21st century you’d probably know that silverware is not worth stealing.
Pedant
He keeps misplacing his Iphones in the den or on the lawn.
A ton of silver can fit in a wardrobe and is worth a million USD. I know stackers with that much silver and if stackers became hackers they might get your robot to steal your gold/silver for them.
But more of a risk is the robots stealing all your data with their access to your home office.
A ton of silver in your wardrobe will likely collapse the floor under it.
> if stackers became hackers
“If stackers were hackers, PHYS would fly.”
Hacked it will.
Haven’t they been deported yet?