Just when it seemed like we were never getting cool stuff depicted in the cartoonish future from The Jetsons, a San Francisco startup says it has completed the first consumer home cleaning by a humanoid robot in the United States.
The company, Gatsby, selected a customer from its waitlist, sent a robot to the apartment, and says the machine cleaned the entire home without a human cleaner physically present. Instead of buying an expensive robot of your own, customers use an app to book a cleaning, much like ordering a rideshare or food delivery. Gatsby charges a flat $150 fee per cleaning and says the robot handled the job on its own.
While the milestone sounds like something straight out of Saturday morning cartoons, it also raises questions about privacy, trust, and how comfortable people will be letting humanoid robots roam around their homes. Home cleaning is considered a particularly difficult task for robots because apartments are filled with clutter, furniture, cords, pets, and unpredictable obstacles.
Still, Gatsby sees the successful cleaning as a major step toward bringing humanoid robots into everyday life. So congratulations, humanity: we finally got the robot housekeeper from The Jetsons. Now we're just waiting on those flying cars.