There will soon be robots everywhere.

Whether a positive or negative emotion arises as you conjure that future – you do agree with me. We will soon have robots in our homes.

You’d be right to be cautious. The recent decades of consumer technology innovation have pulled us, vertebra by vertebra, into a tight hunch over our screens.

New technology often enters our lives through an unceremonious shove. Hey!, watch our ad, Here – let us track your movements across other apps. And don’t worry too much about how it will change who you are in five years.

Home robots aren’t just a new icon on your screen. They’re a totally new category of innovation. They will fit into our lives in a way that only humans and animals have so far.

In this new category of technology, we can and should be intentional about how it will change our day-to-day lives in the long term. What will our Tuesday evenings look like in five years?

What will our Tuesday evenings look like in five years?

Done well, robotics can serve to restore us. Every smartphone ping diffuses your brain. A good home robot takes on the burden of maintenance so that you stay focused on what it means to be human: playing, learning, making a mess, crying, laughing.

We take this seriously because this will be a fundamental change on the order of the steam engine, electricity, the internet. We must build something that gives us the domain of humanity. We must build something that does not replace but instead enables human relationships, something that eases our way of living.

We seek to build an elegant machine that makes the home delightful. We ask for more relaxation. We demand more play.

We demand more play.

Done right, this new technology will see us standing up straight again, reordering our vertebrae, reengaging with our humanity.