[mattlondon]

A robot that cleans my toilet would be nice. Sure I could have a dedicated toilet cleaning robot, and a dedicated dishwasher loading robot, and a dedicated pickup-up-crap-off-the-floor-the-kids-have-left-around-robot ... or just something general purpose?

I don't care if it is humanoid or not, but given that our house is built for humans to interact with it seems reasonable that it should fit into that space.

[logicchains]

A robot with enough arm strength to properly clean a stubborn toilet wouldn't be safe around kids.

[mattlondon]

I let my current cleaner be around my kids.

Now the question is is it riskier to have basically a stranger with strong arms in my house near my kids, or a robot with strong arms in my house near my kids?

I feel like a robot has the technical capacity to see behind it and stop (I have many times for example been using the vacuum and moving my arm forwards and backwards and whacked a kid in the face with my elbow on the backswing because they've walked up behind me and I've not known, but a robot with literal eyes and radar in the back of its head would spot that situation and freeze). Similar to self-driving cars: they have lots more eyes than a human has, and can be looking everywhere at once etc.

But do we trust the programming? Do we trust the human cleaning my toilet's "programming" (thoughts, emotions, motives etc)?

[trumpdong]

Your cleaner is a human and you trust them to behave like a human including having a quite low probability of suddenly having a seizure. Robots do not think the same way. Any software glitch may cause it to move in an unexpected way. I had one freeze for half a second (unknown reason) while motors were full forward, and it rammed itself into a literal brick wall.

[forgotusername6]

It just needs the patience to apply and gently scrub with mild chemicals for several hours.

[trumpdong]

You know what does this better than a humanoid robot? A toilet with a built-in dispenser for mild chemicals! It could do it periodically, or with every flush so that the mild cleaning chemicals are always sitting there. An unsophisticated one made of cheap plastic could be bought for $5 a the grocery store and clip onto the side.