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Dantas, who used to be a professional ballet dancer, started the first robotics co-working space in Oakland eight years ago, to bring the mechatronic engineering community together. Since then, they’ve had over 80 startups as part of the co-working space who have collectively raised over $250 million. The most dramatic change in robotics in recent years, according to him, has been that it’s become more efficient for one person to do multiple things. “One founder successfully created a 3D printer to print blood vessels, on his own, without a team. Isn’t that insane?” he said. Younger founders are learning online, experimenting, using software and AI help to create what they want without formal education or even a team.

Robotics is beyond humanoids

When you say robot, most people think of humanoids: human looking, two-legged, two armed bots that, maybe sometime in the future, will do your house chores for you. The first presentation dashes that assumption. “I want to challenge how you think about robotics,” said Yegor Anchyshkin, co-founder at Instock.com, a startup that creates autonomous mobile robots that can drive on vertical ramps in warehouses, carrying bins to hold inventory. He urged people to think beyond androids or humanoids to automation devices that can solve big problems with low maintenance.

“Our robot is a four-wheeled cart that runs on magnetic suspension systems and can go anywhere in a warehouse, stacking bins, bringing them out to their human,” he explained, adding that they created a simple design to keep maintenance cost low.

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Anchyshkin is right. Where I live, automated self-driving cars pick and drop off passengers seamlessly. At home, I have IoT machines that talk to each other. In labs, there are biotech machines that analyse blood samples. Warehouses have crawlers that stack and do heavy lifting. My home is around the corner from a startup that sells security bots. They’re all non-humanoid and all robots.

“Robots are still largely single type of task and require additional inputs before they can do multiple tasks,” said Andrea Keay, managing director of Silicon Valley Robotics, who is also the co-host of today’s event. Keay has been running the nonprofit and has been pretty involved in the Valley’s robotics scene since 2011. With her punk styled purple hair and her get-it-done attitude, Keay buzzes with energy. “Multitask robots and even swarm robots are going to come soon enough!”

Various people line up to speak, making her busy. Someone asks for a job. A school teacher asks the audience if someone wants students to work on their projects, or donate old equipment to his school. Roberto Cardenas, CEO of Eden Robotics from Texas who sells $30,000 humanoid robots is looking for mechatronic engineers to build better humanoids and start operations in California.

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“In the Silicon Valley, the majority of startups go the venture capital path because that’s where the money is,” says Keay, a few minutes later, when I ask her about profitability of these startups. Though this ‘go big, go fast or go broke’ path works for some, in robotics, you need to create, iterate, and reiterate. In her career she has seen good companies go down under because they couldn’t give the time required, couldn’t find a market for their product, or their investors had unrealistic expectations. “An initial high valuation can be curse,” she adds.

On stage, an engineer brings a leftover robot of a now extinct EdTech startup which used to co-work at Circuit Launch “If anyone wants to hack and recode this one,” he said, “you’re welcome to talk to me.” A student volunteers from a local university. It’s a little red forlorn thing – chipped, even dusty in corners. But it’s getting a new life.

I sneak out into the now chilly air, walking to my car. I drive, without thinking too much about the automated, driverless taxi in front of me. The robots are here. We’re already used to them. And frankly, I quite enjoy having them around. And for some reason, I trust them more than I might trust human strangers. What does it say about us?

Shweta Taneja is an author and journalist based in the Bay Area. Her fortnightly column will reflect on how emerging tech and science are reshaping society in Silicon Valley and beyond. Find her online with @shwetawrites. The views expressed are personal.