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Of all the tasks I do, folding clothes takes a ridiculously small slice of my time. Is this and all the other robotics videos aimed at H&M staff?
by karolist 2mo ago
Of all the tasks I do, folding clothes takes a ridiculously small slice of my time. Is this and all the other robotics videos aimed at H&M staff?
- _diyar 2mo agoI think its a ubiquitous task which requires some amount of precision dexterity, so its an easy to digest example.
- surfmike 2mo agoSorting and folding laundry is one of the most tedious chores in our household. Do you have kids?
- ileonichwiesz 2mo agoIf I did have kids, I probably wouldn’t want them to run around a big heavy robot with very little spatial awareness.
- karolist 2mo agoFYI I do have 3 kids, no, it doesn't take that long (we share this with the wife), in a few years the kids will be able to help us with this task so it's gonna be even less time. Doing household chores is good for the kids. I wouldn't wan't this robot driving around my household when I have small children anyway...
- cynicalsecurity 2mo agoIt's meant for war. Today it folds your clothes, tomorrow it plants mines and shoots at you on a battlefield.
- Joker_vD 2mo agoSo is a pasta factory. Today it rolls and forms macaroni, tomorrow it makes bullets. Have you ever wondered why rigatoni are so wide? That's why.
- cynicalsecurity 2mo agoThe pasta factory analogy is hilarious, get an upvote. Is it something from the WWII?
- Joker_vD 2mo agoNo, not really. The macaroni are formed by squeezing the dough through the openings, while the cartridge cases are made by stretching small metallic disks into cylindrical shape (and then stamping the bottom to make it flat and have a proper rim), so it's impossible to repurpose the pasta-forming machines into the casing-making ones. But it is an urban legend of sorts, along with "baby strollers with chain tracks instead of wheels", and shows how little most of us know about industrial manufacturing.
- dudisubekti 2mo agoWhat? There's already a better system today: mine launchers (remote minelaying system)
- Cthulhu_ 2mo agoSeems overly complicated for that task (planting mines / shooting) when kamikaze drones are cheap and mass produced.
- infofarmer 2mo agoA lot of smaller chores look trivial when considered in isolation, but have disproportionate time and mental cost because of how they fit in the flow of life. Sometimes the effect is similar to interrupting an engineer for a couple of minutes.
- michaelt 2mo agoThey're trying to show their investors a butler robot that can do all types of household chores. Folding fabric has traditionally been very hard to solve with robots; the ideal places to grab the fabric might be hidden, the fabric patterns are repetitive, and the material flops around, tangles in the grippers, and brings other pieces of laundry with it. Successfully sorting and folding a basket of laundry shows they've got a control system capable of performing some quite difficult tasks.
- mk89 2mo agoAll you need to do to understand what task is more complex (for a robot to solve) is just to ask a 6-8 years old child to do it. It takes days before they "understand". So it cannot be that simple (for the reasons you mentioned).
- karolist 2mo agoThey also use a large ring attached to the first zipper to help the robot grab it. This is not a realistic zipper, but I do appreciate them being honest and showing that grabbing small objects is still not perfect
- f6v 2mo agoI have a pile of washed clothes that moves from the bed to the chair for a good week before it finally goes into the closet.
- darkwater 2mo agoCome back when you have a family and you run a washing machine full of clothes per day.
- Philip-J-Fry 2mo agoDon't you just throw all the washing into the washing machine, wait for it to actually do the work, and then hang it all up afterwards? It's like a 15 minute job max.
- darkwater 2mo agoI mean folding after it has been dried. I hate folding clothes. In my case luckily my wife doesn't mind (as I don't mind doing the rest of the process) but if in say 25 years from now there will be a relatively small and affordable folding appliance, I would totally buy it.
- throwa356262 2mo agoFunny you mentioned H&M. They are boycotted on China due to their public stance against slave labour: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57691415 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57691415 It is important to remember that China is not only about open weight LLMs, fastest cars and flying taxis. There is still a lot of very serious human right abuse going on in this country.
- dannyw 2mo agoI'm not super sure how relevant this is to the overall topic and thread, tbh. There's plenty of cheap yet real rebuttals, whether it's all the things with ICE (and not just the top-of-mind stuff; but effective deprivation of due process for suspects; etc), or even war crimes. I don't think it serves much purpose tbh -- it's not going to change anyone's mind.
- dudisubekti 2mo agoYeah, western lecture on human rights carry no weight these days lol (Israel support, Trump doing Trump thing, war in Iran, etc). They ruined their own reputation so the rest of the world just tuned out.
- throwa356262 2mo agoThis was not a China/US good or bad comment. And I admit it was highly off topic. But maybe once in a while we need to remind ourselves that the world is more than stock prices and LM arena benchmarks?
- adrian_b 2mo agoWhen the last day's news were about other people shot dead by ICE without a plausible reason, it is hard to take seriously discussions about human rights abuse coming from USA. It is hard to imagine a more serious abuse than being randomly killed on the street, while walking or driving during your normal daily routine. Unfortunately, there are very few, if any, countries remaining where human rights abuses are not frequent, so mentioning them in unrelated technology discussions has become non-relevant.
- hasyimibhar 2mo agoAs a parent with 3 kids and both my wife and I working, folding clothes is the most tedious household chore. It's physically and mentally exhausting (unlike doing the dishes, which is only physically exhausting as I can wash piles of dishes while zoning out). And not to mention take so much time, a week's worth of unfolded pile of clothes for our entire household can take me 1-2 hours to fold uninterrupted (2-3 hours if I do it while watching Netflix or something).
- ygouzerh 2mo agoSmall sharing tips, in case it can help: have the maximum of hangers possible. It take a bit more space, but the time saved is huge + it remove iron time for low wrinkle sensitive clothes (e.g cotton polo)
- wfwerwerwe 2mo agoYep.. and with 3 kids so many of the time-consuming "tasks" are not open to automation because a human doing it is the point.. eg. bedtime books, bathing the kids, helping them make their lunch/breakfast, etc.
- schnitzelstoat 2mo agoIt's one of the most annoying. I have a dishwasher so I do minimal washing up. I don't have a dryer as I air-dry my laundry but I could get one if I wanted to. I have a Roborock although I don't use it much since having a toddler. But folding laundry is the one chore which still can't be automated. Even cooking itself has become much easier with air fryers etc.