It’s strange seeing bots showing up already. Our local grocery chain has robots - tall, lanky and uncoordinated - rolling around the stores with their two glowing eyes looking for spills to alert a human to come clean.

The last time I saw one, it was relentlessly circling a scuff mark near the entrance to the back stockroom. Twenty minutes later as I’m getting ready to leave, the bot was still there seemingly totally confounded by this dark and utterly harmless streak on the floor. A nearby employee stocking the shelves rolled his eyes as he told a fellow shopper of the many tens-of-thousands of dollars this machine cost.

You make a great point. We have a lot of sci-fi that's been conditioning us to the idea of a world shared with a large cast of robotic members. I'm a geek who loves those kinds of fantasies. Yet, when I saw that fancy robotic espresso-maker in SF [1], I still reverted to childlike wonder state :) The way the robotic arm gives you a cheeky little wave when it's finished making your coffee is the perfect touch.

[1]: https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/30/cafe-x-opens-in-san-franci...

Most of sci-fi paints a dark picture about a future with robots, though, and perhaps rightfully so.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18300084

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw&vl=en

Indeed and perhaps wrongfully so as well.

I don't understand how 2 cameras on a 20K+ robot is cheaper/better/easier than 20+ fixed cameras that look for changes to the floor.

Not a lot of people know this but Google Glass was very popular amongst farmers.

And this is also a robot that could benefit farmers.

I also can see those robots carry stuff around. For example for a plumber who has a job in a city with parking problems.

Ofcourse all those applications depend on the price but there will always be people who can think if this as a tool in a way you can't think of.