Little girl mistakes water heater for robot, welcomes it to Earth, hugs it, is great

The dream of friendly, sentient robots—Rosie from The Jetsons, doing all the housework—once seemed like a quaint relic of an older era. But, as we’ve seen with virtual reality, older technologies have a way of resurfacing. Artificial intelligences are being constructed with ever-increasing sophistication, and robots are being built that can run and leap and lift and scramble over ice like superpowered dog men. Parents everywhere have already realized the delightful ways an iPad can occupy a child’s mind for hours on end. The notion that we may someday have robots to care for us, and in turn receive our affection, seems increasingly likely.