Walking robots and all-seeing vacuums are putting our houses in order – but can they make chores obsolete?

The AI home of the future sounds like a domestic ideal, with our every concern catered for by obliging and kindly automated robots. The reality, writes Andrew Griffin, might not be quite so blissful...

Robots have already vastly transformed the way we think about housework – and are likely to do so even more dramatically in the years to come (AFP via Getty)

Chores take weeks of our time each year. And already robots that help us out with them – those that automatically clean our floors, for instance – are selling in their millions and likely to keep growing.

Yet in our mainstream depictions of how robots are taking over, their impact on the future of domestic labour is barely discussed. Instead we see the lumbering dog-like, militarised creations of Boston Dynamics, or endless speculation about how sex robots are going to destroy human intimacy.

But technology’s impact on our homes is likely to be just as revolutionary, if not quite so deadly or so sexy. Robots have already vastly transformed the way we think about housework and are likely to do so even more dramatically in the years to come. Those changes have already echoed far beyond the home, changing the very way we live.