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I'm looking forward to the day a small home robot can do the dishes, in the sink – replacing a dishwasher machine. This looks like a small step in that directio
by gojomo 6y ago
I'm looking forward to the day a small home robot can do the dishes, in the sink – replacing a dishwasher machine. This looks like a small step in that direction.
- arketyp 6y agoAnd it seems like an actual first step, as opposed to the various gimmicky anthropomorphs we've gotten used to seeing. If this thing could be set to clean the kid's room during a working day, or programmed to water the plants when I'm away, that's substantial progress.
- mNovak 6y agoWondering what the benefit of a dishwashing robot is? Better off just wishing for a more convenient / compact dishwasher, I think.
- Animats 6y agoSomething that hits stubborn spots with a water jet would be useful. More for commercial dishwashing, though.
- yongjik 6y agoIt takes me an inordinate amount of time to place objects into the dishwasher so that it doesn't have 50% wasted space. Also if you eat East Asian dishes you will have tons of sticky bits of rice, and a dishwasher never seems to be able to scrub them. (Maybe it will if I run it extra hot, but then it will damage plastic lids. You can't win.)
- gojomo 6y agoGeneral-purpose arms that can, as a matter of software, do dishes could take up less space, put the clean dishes away, and then do other things, too, like simple food prep, surface cleaning, other 'straightening up', etc.
- seanmcdirmid 6y agoThat’s the exact opposite of how most robotics are going for more specialized machines, not less. It is an interesting prospect, but what would be saved in space would be lost in more energy and water used (not to mention hygiene, we’ve used our dishwasher a lot more since we have had a kid to disinfect).
- gojomo 6y agoAre you sure a set of robot arms, trained over many generations to minimize motion/water/energy use, while also minimizing dirty dishes, would necessarily use more water/energy than a dishwasher? What if the dishwasher is sometimes run half-full? And the arms can put clean things away!
- seanmcdirmid 6y agoHalf full the dishwasher is still a win, a quarter full and then we are talking, probably not.
- hyko 6y agoDishwasher drawers have already solved this problem, at 5–10% of the cost of one of these robots (that can’t yet solve the problem).
- sbierwagen 6y agoI just checked homedepot.com, and a search for "dishwasher" brings up options from $400 to $550. It would be.... optimistic... to expect any household robot for anywhere near the same price to do that job as well and as durably as a conventional dishwasher. Which, I should point out, can wash dishes for years with no maintenance at all! In fact, you can write news stories about the idea that dishwashers require any kind of maintenance? https://www.buzzfeed.com/kristatorres/clean-dishwasher-filter https://www.buzzfeed.com/kristatorres/clean-dishwasher-filte... I am not ordinarily a pessimistic man, but I would expect to see major, society-destroying levels of technological unemployment from advanced automation long before we see a dishwashing robot.
- shiftpgdn 6y agoI can't toss a plate covered in food (or even really food residue) into the dishwasher. When I can do that I'll be happy with the under sink contraptions we have now.
- gojomo 6y agoBut if you look at the last 10y of breakthrough advances in vision, text/language understanding, sensors, electric motors, & goal-directed training, and project them out another 10-20y... it's just a matter of time, isn't it?
- sbierwagen 6y agoOf course it's a matter of time. But it's a little like watching the nuclear fireball rise over the Trinity test site and think "Wow, I can't wait to use this technology for radioisotope imaging." That's one thing that it can be used for, yes! There are others.