Just had an idea that someone is probably working on already. If they’re not, it wouldn’t be hard to do if you were a decent maker.

You run a rail the length of the ceiling in your room.

On it, you mount a mobile crossbar that reaches the width of the room.

On the crossbar, you mount a mobile unit that can move to each end of the bar or any point in between. Think industrial hoist, inkjet, 3D printer, or CNC machine working head – only this one is a grabbing hand and some cameras, mounted on three or four retractable cables so that it can descend to floor level at any point of the room and move around in three dimensions. You might want it on some kind of flexible arm, so it could reach into cupboards and the like, but that’s an elaboration of the basic idea.

Let’s say you’re a disabled person, or old, or just have a cat on your lap, and you want to get something that’s in another part of the room without getting up. You direct the hand to pick it up – early on, using your tablet and looking through the cameras, but this is the kind of thing AI could learn to do in the next few years. The hand positions itself over the item, descends on the cables, grabs securely, reels in, moves over to where you are, descends to within your grasp, and gives you the item.

Congratulations, you have an aerial servant. One that, within a few years, will be able to respond to voice commands, and a few years after that to your mental commands.

Eventually, I can imagine it bringing you a glass of water when you weren’t consciously aware you were thirsty, because the tech now embedded in your body told it you needed to drink.

If you showed it to someone from the Renaissance, they’d think you were a sorcerer.