Older folks missed out, but that’s what time machines are for
When I was a kid in the 1970s, robots were nothing more than the stuff of science fiction, in the realm of something like Star Wars, which was released in the United Kingdom when I was 4 years old. (I vividly remember the boy sitting in the row behind me at the cinema who constantly kicked the back of my seat all the way through the movie.)
Technology has progressed in such leaps and bounds over the past 40 years that adults in the 1970s, such as my grandparents’ generation, would be amazed by the convenience and ease it has brought to daily life in the 21st century.
In earlier days, if anyone had suggested there would be such a thing as a shop where you buy things without handing over any cash or dealing with an assistant, they would either think you were barking mad or recommending shoplifting!
Well, in fact, a new self-service shop just opened around the corner from my home where you can do just that. You scan your own items and then pay with a mobile phone by scanning the QR code. There are of course shop assistants still on hand if you have any questions or require any assistance.
And indeed, even in my own home I have my own little robot. It may lack the wit and sophistication of C3PO, but it makes up for that in practical value and its contribution to making my life a little bit easier.
The robot in question is a nifty little vacuum cleaner, which, to paraphrase a British beer commercial of the 1980s, reaches all the parts other vacuum cleaners cannot reach. By that I mean that it easily goes under the sofa and bed, which previously would have required the physical shifting of furniture. (In truth, that meant the buildup of a disgusting layer of dust under the aforementioned items of furniture.)
Now those concerns are a thing of the past, thanks to my robotic domestic servant.
Of course, this is by no means the only example of the automation that makes life so much easier these days.
I just wish my grandmother’s apartment in the 1970s could have had all the things we take for granted these days, such as automatic washing machines, microwave ovens, computers, Wi-Fi, remote control TVs and mobile phones, never mind a robot that does the vacuuming (or “hoovering”, as she would have called it). Then she would have had even more time for her favorite pastimes of going to the hairdresser and drinking tea.
All we need now is to see the invention of a time machine. Then I would gladly go back to those days and give all these wonderful things to my lovely granny.