Name: My Year Living with a Robot | Emily Kate Genatowski | TED
Uploaded: 2026-03-06T21:39:35.000Z
Duration: 13 min 51 s
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Adverbs of manner

At this moment, it is exactly 1003 GMT, but it's 1203 here in Vienna.

Britain adopted GMT in 1847 and formally legislated it in 1880.

This decision wasn't born from some overarching philosophical discussion about the concept of time and location.

We needed to know when trains would be arriving and departing at any station along an expansive railroad route.

This need rendered local solar times too imprecise and necessitated our modern day concept of time zones.

I'm a historian and I am fascinated by the factors that shape progress surrounding technology.

From steam power to the telephone to the Internet, we can track the intertwined development of society and technology as each new innovative leap is made.

The technological progress of our generation is AI.

Analyzing how AI will both fit into and shape our world is a fascinating topic that more often than not is sensationalized with these huge promises or catastrophized with disaster.

But in a world that is just screaming for you to think big in order to discuss the future, as a historian, I ask you to think small.

The history of technological progress and its accompanying regulatory frameworks teach us that our future with AI and robotics won't only be decided by these large, sweeping philosophical discussions, but

Through the answering of thousands of practical questions that arise from the simple minutia of sharing everyday life.

I have embarked upon a research project to uncover what all of these thousands of questions really are.

I have spent the greater part of this past year living alongside an AI humanoid robot.

I hatched this immersive research project because I already had all of these questions building up on my own.

How would my dog act around the humanoid robot?

How would the robot handle a house full of delicate antiques, with factories all over the world working hard to get domestic AI robotics to market?

And these engaging viral videos igniting curiosity in millions of people around the world, I felt that as a historian living thoughtfully and openly with a humanoid robot, I could help to provide a glimpse into what the future could look like, start some interesting conversations, find gaps in regulation, and

experiment with community standards for the world around me.

It's equipped with 3D LIDAR scanning and a depth camera and a microphone array.

It has a large language model which name is Ben Ben, and

it has AI powered stability and movement capabilities.

To me and my friends though, this is Tova, the robot that I live with at home every day with Tova on Earth, this really wide range of Practical issues.

And in turn, that highlights the need for regulation in a really wide variety of spaces.

Today I'm going to share with you five practical lessons that I've learned as a historian living with a robot, and

how the lessons learned at my house connect to society's future.

Lesson one, you have to robot proof your home.

I mentioned Tova has lidar scanning, and with that there's something that's called obstacle avoidance.

Unfortunately, it doesn't always shield us from some clumsiness around the house.

See, Tova walks and runs, and Tova gestures.

And with those gestures, unfortunately for my household, I've lost, like, my favorite teacup, some vases, and

So I called my insurance company and I wanted to ask them about expanding my home insurance coverage and my personal liability insurance.

I need to actually expand my home insurance coverage and my personal liability.

They hung up on me because they thought it was a prank.

But autonomous robotics liability and insurance coverage is a field where practicality and immersion, they're going to create precedence on any number of different issues.

We need to answer questions like, I own the robot, the company programmed the robot, and

my friend is operating the robot, and the robot knocks over a boss who's responsible.

Now, I know that these questions are a little bit far from these, like, amazing sci fi debates about a robotic future that we love to have.

But these are the types of questions that demand answers the moment one of these robots comes into your home.

Lesson two, transit with a robot is really rough.

So I had the immense pleasure of introducing Tova to Vienna on an Austrian morning show on national television.

It's like way out in the outskirts of the city.

And they film in the wee hours of the morning.

Tova weighs like 60 kilos and packs into this like giant black crate.

And I had to call a cab at 4am and ask the driver, oh, I have something.

Can you just help me get something into the back of the van?

And he starts to come around the back of the van.

He's already looking at me because obviously it's four in the morning, the destination is not common.

And then he sees this giant Black box that's basically the size of me.

And reluctantly, he leans down to grab it.

And as soon as he feels how heavy it is, he looks at me.

I had to open it up and show him it's a humanoid robot to ease his mind.

But this brings up the concept of transport regulations for humanoid robotics, right?

So calling cabs for giant black boxes, it gets expensive.

So I was racking my brain thinking to myself, okay, I take the tram.

The robot can just walk on the tram and sit down, right?

Then I thought, okay, what if the ticket inspector comes, right?

Needs a ticket if it's going to be taking up a seat.

So I wrote to the transit authority and I said, I really want to buy an annual card for my AI humanoid robot.

So they wrote back to me and they said, any and all requests for an annual card, it has to be accompanied by registration papers of the resident.

So naturally, I went to the police bureau and I said, I need to register someone at my home.

But I do think that if these robots are going to be helping us manage our lives and our homes, this innately comes with them occasionally venturing outside, right?

They could go somewhere with us and just accompany us.

They could hold something for us, or they could run to the store when we're in the middle of cooking a recipe and we forget an ingredient.

We need to facilitate and regulate a way for them to do that safely that works for the robots and the owners and the other people living in the city who don't have robots and the city itself.

Lesson three is that robots aren't always welcome.

So, of course, as you can imagine, I have friends who call me up and they beg me, I'm having a party this weekend.

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My Year Living with a Robot | Emily Kate Genatowski | TED

progress

embrace

fascinating

concept