Dig on this paradox: we're humans and we love robots. Why? What's the appeal of machines moving about, following our commands? The need to be served? Are we that deeply lazy that we'll throw millions and millions of man hours and mullah at developing this crazy, complicated technology? Ask any tribesman on the Serengeti and see if he cares about robots. It must be an industrial world thing.

Science fiction is decidedly dedicated to the myth and burgeoning reality of mechanized myrmidons. If you live in this 21st Century culture, you've been saturated with the notion of technology's tantamount titillation: the robot. There is something intriguing about it. Machines fetching your slippers, taking out the garbage, doing all the hard work that tends to be dangerous for humans to do.

There's deep space exploration. Probes to the sun -- even deep-sea robots that can farm the sea floor for hard-to-find life-saving flora. We're dead-set on the idea that somehow robots will make everything better. Yeah, planes, trains and automobiles have made this modern life possible, but at what cost? Not to get too Al Gore about it, but the technology we harvest comes at a steep sowing cost.

We're humans. We like to be served. We think it means we're better than some people. Being served is the ultimate expression of status. Thanks to eons of class exploitation -- not to get too Karl Marx about the whole thing -- has shaped our definition of leisure and power. The man or woman toiling in the field or factory is less than the ponce sitting on his duff eating duck.

Just conjure Robbie the Robot and R2D2 and try not to be thrilled about the prospect of owning one. Give us an animal or robot that can reflect back what it meant to be a human being and you've got an instant hit on your hand. Look at Disney-Pixar's WALL-E. Little jazzy robot who loves watching classic films and cleaning up? Instant hit.