There are countless videos featuring animals and Roombas: Roomba vs. Rabbit, Roomba vs. Cat, Roomba vs. Dog and so on (even babies!). Roombas are autonomous robotic vacuum cleaners that bear no resemblance to animals in shape or form. And yet they are paired with animals to observe “unanticipated relations” (I think this speaks to the spectacular power of contingency that I mention in my post). Replacing the robotic dog for the roomba suggests that there is a desire to pair animals and machines (because machines are always animal-like?) more generally and I think that tells us more about human beings than non-human animals.