Maybe there was a time—when I was a kid watching “The Jetsons”—when I fantasized about a walking, talking, productive robot in my house. It would do the laundry, the cooking, the cleaning, answer the door, walk the dog, dress the kids, make the bed, and so on.

Many companies, most notably Tesla, are working on this now. We see the prototypes all over social media. Artificial intelligence (AI) language models have made their speech very impressive. Their movements are looking ever more natural. They do seem to be on the way, and Elon Musk says they will be the biggest consumer product in history.

These days, I’m not so sure. In fact, the prospect seems absurd to me, destined to make our lives worse not better. Do we really need fewer routines and more excuses to sit and stare at our computers while machines do even more work for us?

Count me among the skeptics. We have been replacing household routines with machines for a century. Some have merit because the manual way is too arduous. I would rather have a vacuum cleaner than beat out rugs, even if the latter method is better in the long run. Same with dishwashers and washing machines. I get that they save time. …

Buy a robot if you must, but it is just as crucial to learn and do so-called menial tasks with joy, if only to remind ourselves of the high place of the human person—ourselves—in the unfolding of our lives. Maybe we should stop spending money on toys that encourage us to believe that we are ever less useful as human beings.

Every new technology in the 21st century seems to go in the same direction: overpromised results, wild enthusiasm, roaring stock markets, release, disappointment, and finally reality. Remember the way we were all going to wear headsets and live in the Metaverse? That did not happen.

Similarly on robots for domestic use. I’m bearish. My intuition is that society has already seen peak techno-utopia and is now ready for a return to the physical world with all its beautiful routines, the mastery of which requires human hands.