chapter 1

The industrial revolution had introduced steam power and factories to the world.
The cyber revolution had introduced computers and the internet to the world.
Now the robot revolution was in full swing.
The robots came in many different guises. Some were stuck to the floor and repeated the same task over and over. Others rolled around on wheels and had limited intelligence. The home bots were a new breed altogether. They looked almost human, if it was not for their brightly coloured wigs and glassy eyes. They were deliberately made that way so that they would never look completely human.
Initially they were designed to help the disabled become more independent by doing all of their household chores on command. Newer models did not need to be instructed what to do. They could think for themselves and knew when the floor needed to be cleaned. They knew when the kitchen needed restocking. They could drive a car more efficiently than a human because they always stuck to the speed limit, never got irritated behind the wheel and could park perfectly every time.
The home bots then started to take over in the workplace.
At first they did they only did the jobs that the humans did not want to do. The boring mundane poorly paid jobs, such as delivering pizza, litter picking or shopping trolley collection. They could do it 23 hours a day, every day in every weather and never complained. They only had an hour off to recharge.
Then more sophisticated home bots were designed. These were shop assistants, hairdressers, beauticians, car mechanics, tailors. The generation after that could do everything a human could do and started taking over middle class jobs as well.
The humans welcomed the arrival of the home bots. If they lost their jobs, they were well compensated. After all, a home bot did not need to be paid. That was why the businesses were employing them and could afford to pay their other workers off. The new employees were a sound investment. It was a modern slavery and bosses stood to make a lot of money out of them.

Meanwhile, humans were left at home with nothing to do. Some spent their time preening themselves, going to the gym, getting fit, looking good... while others spent their days on the golf course or on doing something creative such as painting or drawing.
Spending time investing in a new business was a fruitless task, as the home bots were muscling in on everything.
The government, once it started employing home bots in all of it's departments, started making a decent profit.
The profit paid off the national debt and improved all human services. Healthcare was free and high standard. Prisons ran themselves, the police and fire brigade were more efficient, yet cheap to run.
When the government no longer knew what to do with their money, they started to pay humans not to work. To qualify for the new benefit, they did not have to prove anything. There were no jobs left for humans to do any more. There was so much money the government were literally giving it away. Everyone was affluent now.
Humans got lazy. The less they had to do, the less they wanted to do it.