Enjoy the peace

Many industry experts predict that Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot will start shipping to the general public in 2025. Tesla plans to make billions of these full-size humanoids and sell them to us like Tesla cars at a price just under $20k.

While they are impressive technically, it’s unclear what their purpose is in human life. Research has shown that a humanoid robot is not what we want (see Uncanny Valley) nor is it the most efficient form of a robot. There are too many moving parts, and they remind us too much of ourselves. We want silly, small, helpful bots.

Either way, this was the last summer without starting to see them in your town.

A robot form that is already helping society: cleaning robots. Beyond the standard household vacuum bots, there are a range of drones and cleaning robots now available to purchase.

Commercial cleaning is expensive and, in many cases, hard to find people willing to do it - particularly in the United States. The bathroom cleaning robots shown below, for example, clean restrooms in large buildings each night and then lock themselves in a closet. The total cost is under $6 per hour, far less than an employee.

These are the types of robot humans want and need!

We generally agree with Tesla’s innovation but in this case, they may have gotten it wrong.

Watch more cleaning robots on our YouTube channel.