Walter Pidgeon and Anne Francis had Robbie the Robot, polite, efficient, and capable of doing basically everything – including distilling 100-proof rocket bourbon. My robot would love folding laundry. I don’t think so. Because I don’t need my robot silently watching me eat nachos at midnight and recording it for science. We went from flying cars being the big futuristic promise to realising, nah, what we really want is help with daily life.