From the high street: The robots are coming...

In 1992, I nagged my mum and stepdad to rent Terminator 2. I was probably a little young for it but all the other kids at school had seen it. The hype surrounding the film was huge, complete with Guns N’ Roses soundtrack and ground-breaking special effects.

The film captured my imagination. I remember thinking what the future would look like with robots to do every form of household labour, cooking, cleaning, and me generally living the easy life. That was provided I wasn’t living in a post-nuclear wasteland after the machines’ artificial intelligence had become sentient.

Of course, the world is easier thanks to technology. We have household appliances that our not-so-distant ancestors would have called witchcraft. But the adoption of large change is rarely as we foresee or fear. I’m still waiting for my flying car as promised by Tomorrow’s World in the early 1980s. I still mop the kitchen floor with a bucket, mainly because I’m too tight to buy a £500 automated version when I can use my existing method for free with 10 minutes of elbow grease.