Musk and other tech gurus say humanlike robots are the next big thing. Don't hold your breath

With AI beginning to look as if it has reached a deployment plateau — if not a lessening of hype — high-tech promoters and investors are on the hunt for the next big thing. And they're focusing on humanoid robots.

You know the species because androids have been a mainstay of science fiction since before Isaac Asimov coined the "three laws of robotics" for a novelette published in 1942.

Since then, popular culture has given us Robby the Robot in the film "Forbidden Planet" (1956); Rosie the Robot, a household helper dressed in a maid's garb in "The Jetsons" (1962); Marvin the paranoid android in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (1978); suspect robots in the movies "Alien" (1979) and "Aliens" (1986); and others too numerous to count.

Now, tech entrepreneurs are trying to convince us