Do I want a robot to clean my house?
I am giving in and getting another cleaner. My husband retired early and the idea was he was going to do the housework and before the miraculous day dawned, covid was on us and we weren’t allowed one anyway. I work full time, and let’s be honest, and the house husband idea not going according to plan, so I am getting another.
The footage of Ai-Da (pronounced Ada, not Ay-dar, some sort of Welsh/Scouse mash up as I originally thought!) ‘talking’ to the House of Lords yesterday made me wonder what I would do if I could have a robot cleaner. What would it have to look like and what would have to happen for me trust it.
1. It has to work
It doesn’t break down at random times (like pretty much every other tech I have used) or do weird things like run manically around the house brandishing a toilet brush and talking gibberish.
But a peek into James Dyson’s robotics lab where his team of hundreds of engineers have been working for over a decade getting robotic arms to do the many tasks required of a robot cleaner. It might break down, but not sure it will be attacking me with my bread knife. (Aaah unless the software is hacked by a nutcase who want to kill me? No wait, I think Dyson might have thought of that, so I’ll probably take my chance on that one just like I do that my human cleaner is not going to kill me or rob me.)
What about the Bot Handy Samsung recently launched in the US, which is like a robot vacuum with robotic arms. Shown here below putting stuff in the dishwasher in an irritatingly slow way.
Frankly I can’t see it managing to get the three day old ingrained tomato sauce off my filthy worktops, put the right lid on the 15 things I have used to make my dinner and put them all away in the right place. Let alone manage the bag of flour with the slight slit in it, which goes back fine if you fold it in the right way and keep your thumb on while putting it in the cupboard at the right angle.
What about lumpen “Gary The Service Robot” who Unlimited Robotics tells us ‘can do (potentially) anything. How? Because it has an internal app market, in which you can download the relevant app and get the services you need. Look at your mobile: it has an app store, but can it water your plants or throw the garbage? Gary can!”
It can supposedly ‘take out laundry, pick toys from the floor, ironing, work the dishwasher, hoover, bring casual items, drinks and snacks, water the plants, wash the floor and schedule activities. It can also clean the toilet sit — their misspelling not mine — eye for detail… very important in robot development guys!
So I am presumeably to download yet another app, tell it to make me a cup of tea — at the right temperature, with the right teabags, in the right teapot, with the right amount of the right milk for me, (from the three we currently have in the fridge for different family members), in the mug I like depending on the time of day?
Will I have to tell it all this, or show it where I have put everything when I put it away, or tell it where to put the things I have bought (or the Internet of Things fridge has ordered for me because I ran out even tho it’s only been sitting on the side going off for a couple of days?) Or God Forbid spend even one minute programming the app for that ??
Read my lips. NOT. A. CHANCE.
2. It has to look right
So let’s say it all works without me having to programme any apps, faff about telling it where everything is, or having to put everything in the same place all the time or the robot won’t know where it is.
So what will it look like and how will it move? I know from previous work with the lovely folks at Sheffield Robotics and their work on the robot dog Miro and Paro the seal that roboticists will think hard about this.
So here are my preferences:
(a) It can’t move in a spooky and weird way like Boston Dynamics Dancing Robot below. Or look like a robot Arnie Schwartzeneger
(b) Or have a clueless sappy expression like the very irritating Peppa the Robot who is doing the rounds and showing up in banks and shopping malls with a sign on its front iPad (below). I met it once, and honestly I had to restrain a very physical urge to push it over and see what happened.
I am being mean, but how did the brainstorm go on what it should look like?“I know, everyone likes kittens and things with big round eyes, let’s have those. And it better not look too threatening and smart so a sort of half smile might work. Also we need it to pivot half way down so we could give it a sort of waist like a woman (but not too like a woman or the feminists will be onto us) so it’s not threatening and muscular (like the Boston Dynamics one) And everyone is use to seeing white robots now, lets make it nice and white. Maybe it doesn’t matter that much, it is just a mobile iPad after all.”
(c) Or be too lumpen and ugly like Gary, a dishwasher on wheels. I have enough large metal white goods in my house and I don’t need another one cluttering up the place.
And I certainly don’t need yet another warranty to fill in, another hotline to call because the bldy thing doesn’t work and another bot on another website telling me I probably haven’t read the manual properly.
(d ) Or be too hybrid roboty like Ai-Da — not keen on all the wires sticking out everywhere. Anyway my cat eats any wires she can get her teeth on, so it wouldn’t last long in our house anyway.
Also no weird rubbery face. Can you imagine looking that in the eye and asking it to do the toilet? Also not keen on the dungerees, tho it is supposed to be an artist, so I see the point here. Maybe a sort of white lab coat look? No scrap that, then I’d have to wash it if it got dirty.
Gary is looking better by the minute.
(e). But definitely not too human and scary like those lot on the TV programme Humans. You can tell as soon as you look at them it’s all going to end badly. And really, no one in their right mind would have a robot looking like that hanging around the house making dinner for their husband and looking after the kids.
Also, as above, does it wash it’s own clothes? How will it know when they are dirty.
3. What about the cost?
Apart from the cost of buying it, what about my electric bills? It will surely eat power, or run out half way through stacking the dishwasher and then how will I move it?
Presumably it will tell me in one of the many voices I will be able to choose from (Peppa with an East End accent, might be fun!) it is just about to run out of juice and will go and stand on its charger looking blankly at me as I go past it in the hall. Weird. But as I don’t have a cupboard big enough thats where it would have to go.
4. It has to be ethical.
Look, I do ethics for a living (and yes I do vet my cleaning company and don’t do cash and only hire the ones who pay for sicktime and holidays etc). So is it even ethical in the first place to deprive a person of a job?
Could I rationalise it because cleaners are like gold dust, so there clearly aren’t hoards of the unemployed clamouring for a job like this anyway?
What about the plastic, the rare earths, the energy use from the AI and the machinary — and Kate Crawfords excellent book The Atlas of AI doesn’t cover cleaning robots, but there is bound to be power imbalances and exploitation somewhere down the supply chain. How will I tell? What will the regulation say about all this. Maybe they will be designed according to the ‘Care Centered Value Sensitive Design (CCVSD)’ principles proposed for care robots. Who knows.
But is it exploitative anyway to hire a real person to clean up my muck because I and my husband are too lazy, err busy? Lots of different views even from Guardian readers on that one. Maybe it is more ethical to get a robot after all?
Luckily, this is taken out of my hands as there are no robot cleaners to buy. But if there were, which one would I choose? I think the Dyson, because it will be clever, it will work and do what I want it to do and they aren’t obsessed about making robots that look just like humans or trying to re-purpose some AI software they invented for something else. And hopefully, they will have thought about the ethics of production as well. They will have a good helpline and repair systema and I’ll buy it from John Lewis, like everything else, so it will be good value and I can send it back if I don’t like it.
The replacement of existing human cleaners is one I am ducking for now and will make the decision on what’s going on in the world when it happens.
And back in the real world, Rhea starts on Friday and instead of the usual manic house clean, I am looking forward to a relaxing Saturday morning reading the papers and planning my weekend. Bliss. Thank you Rhea.
