[backlava12]

> You're telling me we've finally got robots that can do our laundry?

No, we don't.

I wish we did, that would be amazing.

There have been demos like this over a decade. But they are just that, demos. Demos done in a controlled environment.

If there was a robot I could buy that could effectively fold laundry or do dishes, I would gladly drop 50-100k on it, but such a thing doesn't exist and likely won't for a long time.

[villish]

You would honestly pay 50-100k on a robot that just folds laundry or does your dishes? In the US you can get a maid that cleans once a week for $150-250 and would do a much better job. By the time that cost would equal this robot, the robot would be obsolete, not to mention any maintenance costs.

Also dishes are the easiest chore to do around the house, especially if you clean them after use instead of letting them pile up.

[hadlock]

As long as it was the kind I could buy spare parts for, sure. And it wasn't connected to the internet. Not having cleaning staff in the house periodically would be a huge quality of life improvement.

[backlava12]

This is a huge overlooked factor I think.

Except for people who grew up rich and are used to having "help" in the home, most regular folks find having paid help in their home more than a bit awkward.

[backlava12]

I honestly think I would. I have a maid come every two weeks which is of course not often enough for dishes/laundry. A maid that only came weekly couldn't stay on top of dishes either but they could do laundry fine sure. I do a lot of cooking and I find constantly doing dishes and loading/unloading the dishwasher to be a huge never-ending pain. A device that costs 100k and would free of me that sisyphean task forever would be a godsend. Also you can have the robot work anytime whereas a maid is probably on a schedule.

And not to move the goal posts, because my original post did only mention laundry and dishes, but I assume once a robot reached a point where it could do laundry/dishes effectively without supervision, that it could do a variety of other tedious household tasks. 50-100k would be well worth it IMO.

[villish]

Well in that case the robot should cook as well! Sure, if the robot could do all the chores in a household that price looks more reasonable.

I quite enjoy doing laundry myself though, it's a routine I do at night and find relaxing.

[bad_haircut72]

A kitchen helper that did all worst parts of cooking, the prep, peeling potatoes etc - and let me come in right where the celebrity chefs on tv do, with all the ingredients ready to go, would be pretty cool

[backlava12]

I would love this. It would let me do more elaborate and complicated meals more often. I could focus on experimenting and trying new recipes rather than the drudgery.

The whole thing where the chef has every single ingredient ready to go in a separate bowl? (which in real life would be an insane amount of dishes to do) You could do that for real and let the robot worry about the dishes.

[abraxas]

Wow, some people really dislike any inconvenience in your lives, don't you?

What will you do pray tell with that extra time? I doubt it will be spent on loftier pursuits. In fact I'm quite certain that for the vast majority it won't be.

Wall-E was a documentary - just shot in the past.

[backlava12]

Technology has already removed a huge amount of inconveniences from our lives that we take for granted, such as not having to engage in backbreaking subsistence agriculture to survive. Why do you draw the line at a robot doing dishes but not a tractor plowing a field?

By your logic, why shouldn't I get rid of my dishwasher and laundry machine?

[abraxas]

Some things are necessary for survival and flourishing while others merely remove inconvenience from our lives.

Agricultural technology feeds the people we have around the globe (arguably we have too many people for the planet's capacity but that's a separate topic). Meanwhile some technologies just feed the hedonistic instinct.

Of course the line is blurry in places but cleaning up your messes is definitely the top end of the hedonism treadmill. I may be radical in my views here as I consider a personal automobile one such hedonistic luxury that the society would be better off without. Consider the Netherlands here. By just about any metric you care to measure it's one of the best flourishing societies in the world handily beating the US and Canada on an array of well being stats. Yet they are actively shunning cars and pushing their society towards the "inconvenience" of walking, cycling and public transport. Their society as a whole benefits in many ways.

Most of the world (with the USA leading the pack) is conveniencing itself into an early grave.

[backlava12]

Thanks for taking the time to explain your point of view here.

I think what I'm struggling with is what criteria (or who) determines which inconveniences are acceptable to remove and which ones aren't. For example, why is a standard kitchen dishwasher acceptable but a robot that saves you 5-10 minutes a day of loading/unloading the dishwasher not? Is a regular Kenmore dishwasher acceptable, or does it push too far towards the top of the hedonism treadmill, and people should have to do dishes by hand?

> What will you do pray tell with that extra time? I doubt it will be spent on loftier pursuits. In fact I'm quite certain that for the vast majority it won't be.

I actually agree with you here. Judging by how most people spend their time, the majority will fill 10 minutes of toil saved with Youtube shorts and Instagram, but there are still a minority of people who will put that time normally spent on toil towards higher aims.

For the former category, if they were just doing mindless toil anyway, what does it really matter if they waste that time some other way?

[pixl97]

>Meanwhile some technologies just feed the hedonistic instinct.

Ah, Calvinism rears it's ugly head again. Life is suffering, God doesn't want it otherwise.