While debate on military robots heated up this month thanks to UN talks about the development of lethal autonomous robots--and military robots are evolving quickly thanks to defense budgets--household robots remain far from ubiquitous. More than a half-century after the world's first industrial robot, Unimate, began work at a General Motors plant, most commercial robots still work in factories. The ones that are in households, such as the roughly 10 million robot vacuum cleaners led by iRobot's Roomba, have usually been limited to performing one task only, like sucking up dirt. Computers and robots can beat us at dedicated tasks like chess or painting cars, though humans still have a massive intelligence advantage in terms of general knowledge. That's a good thing if you fear a robot uprising.