One World Trade Center in New York is in the news. Just days after it finally opened for business, the building replacing the twin towers of the World Trade Center was the site of high drama: a window washers’ platform came loose sixty-nine floors above the ground. Two men were trapped in it as it swung in the air. The firemen used a diamond saw to cut through the nearby window and bring the two men into the building. Many people watched from the ground, and there was much merriment when the drama ended. Photographs of the dangling platform are now everywhere, and much is being written about the happy end both in America and elsewhere. What I find amazing in many renderings of this story is that no-one is surprised to see people washing windows of tall buildings like One World Trade Center. After all, the building has as many as a hundred and four floors. What would be wrong with robots doing the same job? The platform itself would not be needed in this case, and the danger of the robots’ cables coming loose would be considerably smaller. With appropriate changes in the design of the façade itself, the window-washing robots would be in no danger of falling to the ground, where they could hurt passers-by. What amazes me most of all is that all this took place in America, where technology is on everyone’s lips. As far as I can tell by looking at so many photographs of the dangling platform on the World Wide Web, America’s days are past.