CAMBRIDGE, MASS. — With all the problems facing Microsoft, why is Craig Mundie, the software maker's chief research and strategy officer, talking about robots? Tools for programming robots were the primary subject of Mundie's keynote this morning at MIT's EmTech conference. He went on to dismiss Second Life, Linden Lab's frivolous virtual world — but thought a simulacrum of the real world might prove useful: "We think that a cyberspace representation of the physical world will be an important change in how we interact with computers." The common thread in these thoughts?Escapism. Microsoft Research is supposed to look far ahead to the forefront of computing — but I can't help thinking this push is influenced by Microsoft's current straits. Microsoft has foundered in trying to cajole humans to follow its will; despite its best efforts, they prefer other websites to MSN. Cajoling them to switch search engines is a fruitless, expensive task. Consumers utterly confound Microsoft, which has geared itself to sell software in bulk to PC makers, retailers and larger corporations, and let them worry about making it appealing. Change is hard. So why struggle with human beings, and the messy real world, when you can just play with robots instead? Mundie envisions robot receptionists — the voice-recognition hell of customer service, but inflicted on us in real life, in other words. "This will change the everyday way humans interact with computers," says Mundie. Yes: Computers are making humans easier to use.