That's How It Happened

Study finds human-robot attachment

"A newly released Georgia Tech study shows that some Roomba owners become deeply attached to the robotic vacuums and suggests there's a measure of public readiness to accept additional robots in the house — even flawed ones."

Every single finding of this study could have been confirmed by just interviewing me. I bought a first generation Roomba for the GF some years ago. He (yes, "he" not "she") was never really a good vacuum cleaner, but we grew to love him anyway. We nicknamed him Roombie. We cleaned up before deploying him so he could vacuum efficiently. We lovingly disassembled him countless times to remove tangled hairs. We ordered spare parts from the US when he broke. Even now, as he lies unchargeable with a defunct battery, we can't bear to recycle him.