The main reason I've been holding off getting a dog or a cat (current preference is cat, but that has and could change again), is that I'd have to clean, handle and take care of disposing their faeces[0].

It's not that I'm grossed out by the idea--not at all, I'm not very squicky when it comes to this matter. But it's the principle of it. It's probably also a rather silly idea, so bear with me for a bit :)

The idea is most illustrative with dogs, I'll argue it can be extended to cats later. When you have a dog, you're supposed to be its boss, right? This is healthy for the dog because it's a pack animal (unlike a cat), it'll behave better and feel more comfortable if it has a stable place in the social hierarchy, etc. But humans, primates are social animals too. And as it so happens, one common way of signalling social pecking order among primates is flinging poop at each other.

Now of course modern humans don't (usually) do this any more.

And I'm sure I'm over-thinking this. Which is what modern humans (can) do, unlike other primates (I think).

But the brain circuitry for this social pecking order pack hierarchy behaviour are still there. And I have an idea of this sad and confused primate ghost functioning somewhere in the back of my primitive brain circuits, wondering why it's handling the poop of another pack member that is clearly so very much of lower status than itself.

And that is why this idea (silly as it may be) would also extend to cats, even if they are not pack animals, the human cleaning their poop still is. Maybe even more strongly so, as dogs clearly display their relative social status to their bosses in a variety of other ways, while cats are usually lovingly described by their owners as having their very individualistic, charmingly alien, ideas on the matter of status.

So I don't know anything about pets or cats or dogs. I expect you to tell me this :) And I suppose my opinion on these matters will change quite a bit if/when I ever adopt one.

Still, having a robot (or robot toilet) take care of my cat's droppings would pretty much solve the whole débâcle. And yeah I can imagine how it could be "life-changing" in a similar manner as getting a dishwasher machine would be (given one does a lot of home cooking). I do wonder what a similar robot for dogs would look like, though. Because if it would walk your dog for you that's taking away part of the bonding and fun of having a dog in the first place. So maybe you'd just have to walk both your dog and POOPBOT 9000 at the same time, or something. The three of us could even play fetch together, maybe.

[0] I'm sure there are similar rules in the US but to be clear, in the Netherlands you are required by law to scoop your dogs droppings as you walk it outside. As a non dog-owner, and judging what the few exempt areas[1] look like, I'm quite happy with this rule.

[1] Quick bit of side-info about spatial planning in the Netherlands, contrasting with (say) the US or Germany: There exists no empty space in the Netherlands. None. Not between roads, plots of land, fields/plains/forests/nature, industry sites, anywhere. It's all accounted for, zoned and planned down to the square metre. Land is very expensive, and even the trimmings are zoned as "rest space" so they can be tracked.