[coldtea]

>The vision of a having a robot assistant just shows the lack of imagination that people in the 1960s who were making these predictions. They couldn't see further than a mechanised version of what they already had.

I'm not so sure. A robot assistant would be very much desired by thousands, as a general replacement for another human (e.g. domestic server, personal trainer, bud to play tennis with, arbitrary help around the house, and don't get my started on sexbots).

>* Automation of processes is largely about removing as much of the 'physical' bit as possible.*

That might be so, but humans are not factories, and a nice general help anthropomorphic robot would still be very much appreciated. The same way general AI is the holy grail considered to 10000 dedicated processors that can play chess or translate for you.