I watched a humanoid robot clean my apartment. It felt like a taste of the future.

A reporter signed up for Tau Robotics' humanoid-robot cleaning service in San Francisco, where the four-and-a-half-foot robots are currently piloted remotely by humans who watch via cameras in the robots' heads and wrists, collecting training data for future autonomy. The first visit ended early when heat disabled the human controller's equipment, but a second cleaning went more smoothly, with the robot handling the kitchen and toilet despite mishaps like leaving taps dripping and toppling an air purifier. Tau cofounder Cornelia Weinzierl says the robots can already vacuum and mop without human help, and the company has completed only a couple hundred cleanings so far.