I'm going to go ahead and spoil Alita: Battle Angel for you. Not because I'm a dick, but because revealing the ending tells you nothing about the plot and will ruin absolutely nothing about the film. It ends--drum roll, please--with Alita (Rosa Salazar), sword in hand, staring down her foe, her Big Bad. Then it cuts to black and the credits play. The whole movie is a setup for a punch line that never comes.

Using maps plotted by human employees, the AI-powered cleaners will placidly traverse the aisles, sweeping and buffing as they go--just as blue-aproned human employees used to do (and still will, in Walmart stores without an Auto-C, as the robots are called). Perhaps the most striking thing about these robot workers is how not-striking they are. Sci-fi movies suggest a future full of humanoid robots who unnerve us with their "uncanny valley" qualities. Now the future is coming into view, and it looks like a giant Roomba. It's easy to imagine walking absentmindedly past an Auto-C on a shopping trip without even registering its presence.

Last year, Disney created the VertiGo, a robot that can climb walls. I wanted to take that concept further, with a powered-up version of the drone, strong enough to carry a person. The Ventooz lends itself to a variety of uses. It could carry people who inspect or repair buildings and structures like dams. It could serve as a rescue vehicle stranded in dangerous situations.