A lot to play with for the near future here with the resources of the solar system - think of all the unique cultures even just the early habitats swarms will spawn!

And even without major breakthroughs I'm sure some will try to go interstellar AI uploading, some form of hibernation or even a generation ship. Or Nuclear Salt Water Rocket at a couple dozen % of the speed of light, so the trip won't take more than a few decades, which might be doable with some decent life length ehnacement - possibly even a round-trip! :-)

I agree, we need to focus on our local neighborhood. If there are breakthroughs, they'll come. We should make the most of what we already have.

our robot descendants won't care about the long timescales. There's plenty they could do, or they could even power down for a few million years.

I don't care for robots if we're not there to experience the universe. They're just a byproduct, a piece of trash we'll leave after we're gone. I want us to explore, not our toasters.

What a speciesist view! You won’t have any experiences outside the solar system, or likely off planet at all. You will not know any of the people who do. So what difference should it make if they are meat, metal, or some combination?

Would it be OK if the robots brought a dog along?

Robots don't experience anything. They're not alive. Everything they do is something we code into them.

The rest of our fellow animal companions on this earth are thousand times better than any robot. If I'm forced to choose one of them, I wouldn't choose a dog, I'd go for one of the apes, octopus, crow, or maybe even a dolphin. But I'm fairly sure if they're given the option they'll rather stay here.