A few years back I bought and lost a robotic vacuum cleaner that I affectionately called ‘Boo Ray’. Little Boo Ray was still in his youth, about two weeks old, when he mysteriously and unexplainably disappeared while vigorously vacuuming my home. I looked and searched for him for months and months. I turned furniture upside down, explored regions in my home where no human had gone before, and finally, in defeat, I unplugged his charging station and stored it where I could never put my hands on it again.