Human-sized robots (arguably needed for some of the tasks you list, being able to walk stairs, etc.) will be creepy due to how physically imposing they’ll be, and with a risk of being dangerous due to how massive they’ll need to be. For example falling over due to malfunction/collision/tripping, and potentially crushing a small child. I don’t see such a product happening for home use.

If a robot is adept at washing dishes and folding laundry, it suggests our technology is good enough that they should have a decent shot at remaining upright indefinitely, or falling gracefully and righting themselves afterwards.

Perhaps the entire kitchen sink could be redesigned with robotic dish washing in mind. No bipedal Boston Dynamics style robot washing your dishes and taking out the trash - just two arms built into the sink with automated drains and soap dispensing to wash dishes, put them in a rack, and do nothing else. I'd pay quite a bit for that.

How is that different than a dishwasher? The problem is collecting the dishes and putting them away, not washing them. Unless you’re imagining something to scrub pots and pans?

I think that in reality, most people do a very light pre-wash of many dishes, before loading them into the dishwasher. I know I do. I'd be happier if I could just stick the plates in the sink, and come back an hour later to find the dishes, pots, pans and utensils drying in a rack.

Can just be a pair of hands and a camera on extendable/retractable wires, with a wheeled base. Probably much cheaper than making a humanoid.

Exactly. And add one more thing: Help with the care of the elderly and invalids.

As it happens, I turned sixty-seven today. While I am in good shape now, it's reasonable to assume that I might need personal care at some point in the not too distant future. A humanoid robot assistant that could handle many of those tasks would be great.

I have no idea when or whether that will become possible, though.

If there was a smallish vehicle (thing? I'm thinking johnny #5) that could:

hold and carry things you give it (without spilling), and carry then set them down where you ask.

or pick things up from the ground for you.

Then that would probably be a great help for lots of older people.

I'm not that old myself, but I've seen lots of older people who are otherwise self-sufficient struggle with some of these things as mobility starts to suffer.

If it could also talk to you and give sass back, then that would also be a bonus.

Maids will be cheaper than robots for at least a decade

Are you willing to pay for privacy as a premium?

I don't think whatever Silicon Valley cooks up will be more private than a human who has fallible memory

I don't want to pay someone to clean up my messes. That is not the kind of relationship I want to have with another human. But I'd happily pay for a machine that did it.

I understand that this is coming from a place of privilege, but I was raised with regular maid service cleaning our home as a child and it's just something you learn to live with. You pick up after yourself for the easy things like throwing out garbage and picking up your clothes on the floor so the maids can do the heavy work like deep cleaning everything that's not in the way. And it's not necessarily unaffordable for biweekly cleaning.

You don't hire a maid service to clean up after you, you do it because they do a better job at all the stuff you really don't want to.

You would literally be making the same argument for any other breakthrough tech:

Why invent a dishwasher? You can have someone do it! Why have automated elevators? You can have someone do it! Why have automated farming systems? You can hire cheap Mexicans to do it!

We like to invent technologies to help make people's lives easier.

That person doesn't have a better job available to them though, so without that job, you're sentencing them to destitution, which seems like a worse outcome for them. Fortunately you don't have to see it though.

Self driving cars seem tame in comparison.

I don't think so. To my knowledge, nobody has ever been killed by a Roomba. The robot problem is a lot less scary if there are essentially no life-and-death consequences for random innocent bystanders.

a robot arm capable of doing the dishes is also capable enough to manipulate a knife (commonly found in kitchens) in a stabbing motion. Not intentionally, of course, but the sci-fi story of this going bad writes itself. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do it, I'll be the first in line to buy a robot arm sink dishwasher, but robotics is dangerous, even when not piloting a several ton vehicle down the road.

Pretty much this. We pay a cleaning service for the privilege to vacuum and dust.

A robot that does it for me that I can buy for $15k and last a decade? Id be all over it.

Robots can already vacuum and mop floors pretty decently for <$2k.

No one is building a robot to dust your antique china collection anytime soon.

Meh those robots don't do a good job with young children . The amount of debris they have to work around isn't worth it.