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> The company says the robot completes Laundry Flow and Daily Reset tasks autonomously by default, but uses teleoperation assistance when needed to guarantee ta
by ceejayoz 4mo ago
> The company says the robot completes Laundry Flow and Daily Reset tasks autonomously by default, but uses teleoperation assistance when needed to guarantee task completion.
Suspiciously absent: a rough idea of what percentage of tasks need the assistance.
- guiomie 4mo agoSame, I suspect its awful and their strategy is to improve and rely less on it, which would be fine to me if they'd be transparent about it.
- throw310822 4mo agoCan't wait for the Uber version, where anyone with five minutes to spare can fold your laundry from their home.
- gigel82 4mo agoHoly dystopian shit, you might be right. This might just be their new favorite answer when people ask what are all the jobless humans to do after the AI takeover? This... live in squalor, hooked up to VR headsets and doing menial work remotely for the oligarch class, while the AI learns the last few non-automated tasks from them. It's a theme I've seen in many movies over the years.
- deadbabe 4mo agoOr maybe it can be used to provide job opportunities to people currently underserved, for example, if you are bound to a hospital bed you can get a VR telepresence job to make some money and help pay your medical bills.
- ceejayoz 4mo agoGross.
- gigel82 4mo agoWe're doomed if regular people have fully absorbed the propaganda to the extent that they'd think asking invalid hospital-bed-ridden people to work remotely for the uber-rich rather than fixing the tax situation so that those uber-rich can buy one less golden toilet for their private planes (and the state can provide for those poor people) is a good idea.
- ryandrake 4mo agoI think (hope) the poster who suggested that was being sarcastic, although it's hard to tell anymore!
- Schiendelman 4mo agoThe math doesn't math. You could tax all the ultra rich people at 100% and it wouldn't significantly change the social contract. The part people don't like hearing is that it's a lot of the middle class that has to pay much higher taxes if you want those guarantees of minimum living standards.
- goobatrooba 4mo agoCitation needed. Here is one for the contrary (just a book review. The citation is the book). https://cleantechnica.com/2026/04/06/we-need-to-tax-billionaires-at-2-economist-gabriel-zucman-just-explained-exactly-how/ https://cleantechnica.com/2026/04/06/we-need-to-tax-billiona...
- Schiendelman 4mo agoThat strongly supports my point. What do you think $250 billion a year worldwide pays for? That's $30 per person per year.
- unlogic 4mo agoIt's $250 billion less that goes to the ultrarich, so that they can't purchase another $250 billion of assets.
- fn-mote 4mo agoThe oligarchs just have people to come do these tasks. The target audience is the “regular-rich bourgeoisie”.
- gigel82 4mo agoThat's an ever-dwindling section of the population. Middle class and upper middle class is going away, we're very clearly heading towards ultra-polarization.
- ryandrake 4mo agoFor some reason I always get pushback for pointing it out, but we are very quickly heading towards a bifurcated world like Elysium, possibly minus the space station, where a tiny ultra-rich class lives in luxury while physically separated and protected from billions who live in squalor. We're producing everything needed to build and enforce that world!
- mlmonkey 4mo agoDon't worry, Musk is working on the Space Station part ...
- netsharc 4mo agoSo, we'll have Elysium minus the space station..
- selectodude 4mo agoThe meek shall inherit the Earth… but not the moon.
- genewitch 4mo agoThat's a Patton Oswalt bit; "no, haha, the meek shall inherit the earth, that's right. we're going to Mars. Bye!"
- azan_ 4mo agoHow is it worse compared with workers that are currently employed by the oligarch class? It's not like they don't have people doing menial work for them right now. And automation of menial work is a good thing!
- smnc 4mo agoAlex Rivera's 2008 movie Sleep Dealer is not without flaws, but it left quite an impression on me. I watched it it after seeing it recommended here in a comments thread on an article about military drone operators, I should probably watch it again with fresh eyes. EDIT: Jeez, it looks like that's an 11 years old thread. Time does indeed fly. EDIT 2: The source for the claim is paywalled, but this is how the Cultural impact chapter of the movie's Wikipedia page closes: > In 2025, Rivera noted that a tech CEO claimed the film had been an inspiration for his company to employ a remote labour force in the Global South in order to operate robots in the Global North, and that the film has been used in pitch decks for various start-ups. ... once again bringing to mind the "At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from the classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus" meme.
- ares623 4mo agoNah. At least with Uber the driver has self-preservation as an incentive to not just fuck around. What incentive would a freelance nobody have to not do the funniest shit possible inside a stranger's home at least once.
- coffeebeqn 4mo agoTele-operation through a video feed(?) inside my home. Yeah that sounds pretty creepy
- arcticbull 4mo agoIf I wanted someone taking a look at all the stuff in my home, I'd just pay a cleaner here instead of one behind a desk in what I assume is a low-labor-cost locale. For $50/hr I can have them come in every day for 160 days, and they can manage stairs.
- BobbyTables2 4mo agoThey’re also much less likely to film their activities and upload it to the Internet…
- bobbylarrybobby 4mo agoPaying for someone to clean your house? Thats so last year. Why an AI company cleaned my New York City apartment for free https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpwerjy20kyo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpwerjy20kyo
- arcticbull 4mo ago> However, Kilic said Shift was "the most honest platform by far regarding what happens to your data". Good good
- 4mo ago
- stubish 4mo ago> Suspiciously absent: a rough idea of what percentage of tasks need the assistance. This will almost certainly depend on the customer and residence. I don't think subscription pricing will be fair, but it can at least be budgeted for out of pensions and such for the people needing to pay for assistance.
- culi 4mo agoIf I'm gonna be an early adopter and give them such valuable training data, they should at least give me stock options
- Schiendelman 4mo agoI think they're giving you the robot at half price.
- 4d4m 4mo agoI agree - the purchase price barely clears BOM before assembly. But I like that they're not really overpromising much, the use-cases are pretty narrow still.
- conductr 4mo agoGiven how incapable my robotic vacuums and lawnmowers have proven to be, even after several years of iterations, I’d almost prefer if it was all teleoperation and it would hopefully unlock a huge amount of additional tasks it could preform. This would essentially let me hire a human housekeeper at a global vs local wage which is very appealing.
- joe_the_user 4mo agoThe robot has a two pronged gripper. I wonder what teleoperating that to do complex tasks would be like.
- ben_w 4mo agoIMO, hard part is likely the lack of haptic feedback, not that it's just a simple gripper. Small and big feedback, so you don't break eggs (not accidentally at least), and also don't pick up a heavy load that makes the robot topple over and give the remote operator motion sickness in the process. There's a surprising number of labour simulators sold as VR headset games: https://skyhookgames.com/lawn-mowing-simulator-vr-is-out-now/ https://skyhookgames.com/lawn-mowing-simulator-vr-is-out-now... https://www.futurlab.co.uk/games/powerwash-simulator-vr https://www.futurlab.co.uk/games/powerwash-simulator-vr https://gg.deals/game/bartender-vr-simulator/ https://gg.deals/game/bartender-vr-simulator/
- conductr 4mo agoI’m not sure remote operations needs to be like a VR sim or joystick control of every movement. It might be something more similar to prompts. “Go to front door” “bring in packages” “open packages” “sort trash into pile” <click for item select>”is not trash” “take trash to bin”. Once the house is mapped and a good deal of these routines are learned they can be executed with some fuzzy input to the automation. In my mind this is still full teleoperation It would be great if the operator could say things like, in above example, “you forgot to close the door, make sure you never leave this door open, even if you have to open it for a task and it’s not explicitly said you should always imply the door needs to be closed after the task. As a general rule, the door should never be open longer than 1 minute longer than it needs to be for task performance” or something similar and this trains the model over time.
- greggsy 4mo agoThe clothes folding is almost certainly a person. This sort of menial task would likely be given to someone in a poorer part of the world, who ironically will be some of the first to master the first generation of remotely operated high tech robots. The revolution against the rich will be led by poor precariats armed with robots.
- usrnm 4mo ago> The revolution against the rich will be led by poor precariats armed with robots If anything, robots will make rich people richer and their position more secure. Once again, you're hoping for a technological solution to non-technological problems
- wartywhoa23 4mo ago> The revolution against the rich will be led by poor precariats armed with robots. $7,999 a clanker. I can totally imagine hordes of poor people driving around in turret-equipped F-150s packed with robots in evil facemasks. - Hey, bankster, hands upon the fucking wall!
- greggsy 4mo agoI’m not sure you understand the comment
- wartywhoa23 4mo agoUpon re-reading it, yes, I apologize, got it wrong. An army of poor people remotely controlling an army of robots already implanted into rich houses would be fun.
- vidarh 4mo agoIf it were to get to that point, they are already inside your house, paid for by you.
- npodbielski 4mo agoHow? If something like that would happen robots would be disabled in 5 minutes.
- beAbU 4mo agoOh 100% haha. Looking at that video on their website I'm pretty sure it's mostly just remote control. The conditions are ripe for a builder.ai esque scam but with robotics.
- pj_mukh 4mo agoDo I care? The job gets done and I don’t have to bother with letting someone physically into my home. As a parent this seems godsent if it works as advertised just for its overnight reset. Now if they can’t make the autonomy work to maintain the economics then I’d need an exit clause but other than that, have at it boss.
- grumbelbart2 4mo agoThe risk is that this does not scale, they run out of money, the robot won't work any more, and you payed a lot for nothing.
- pj_mukh 4mo agoYea I would hope for sustainable teleop unit economics and then VC money for autonomy. But I don’t need high percentage autonomy out of the box was my point.
- YeGoblynQueenne 4mo agoBut you'd get to keep the robot, no?
- Schiendelman 4mo agoNot for nothing. None of these companies are going to prioritize difficult physical prevention of you running your own OS, and there are already open source robotics companies where you can run your own stack. A lot of the brain hardware in these things is going to be Nvidia Jetson.
- danmaz74 4mo agoHow much does the monthly subscription cost?
- ActionHank 4mo agoEvery single one of these robot plays are going to try pivot to having someone do you laundry remotely for a dollar a day. If they ever get the tech down (I doubt it), they will then try move to broader labour replacement. This is why all the robots need to be humanoid.
- aspenmartin 4mo agoCurious why you feel they won’t get the tech down? I think these products are all data plays right now.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- KaiserPro 4mo agoManipulating soft bodies is exceptionally difficult to do with robotics. moving a soft object from a to b is doable, folding/separating/sorting at any kind of speed is very much an area of active research.
- aspenmartin 4mo agoTotally agree but the idea is this gives you a teleoperation environment that is truly on policy and not some artificial lab. The idea is that these robots, like those Amazon stores, are predominantly just controlled by actual humans.
- iterateoften 4mo agoYeah but if it’s a person seeing inside my home I would rather it be the same person over and over and without cameras. Teleoperated robots are a better fit for businesses and public spaces
- aspenmartin 4mo agoHey I totally agree I do not want a teleoperator looking into my house, it’s just so deliciously tempting to get in home on policy data. Not sure the reason why they are super interested in home environments vs business or public spaces.
- giarc 4mo agoI watched the promo video somewhere and when folding the blanket, the video cuts and edits were very suspicious. I doubt it can fold a blanket at all.
- jfengel 4mo agoThey do show it folding shirts, which I'd think are harder than blankets. Is your doubt caused by blankets being bigger than shirts? (I didn't see it folding a button-up shirt, only tee-shirts. That's an extra degree of difficult and I do doubt that it can do that.)
- YeGoblynQueenne 4mo agoYeah, again the WYSIWYG model of AI: if you see a robot folding a shirt, that robot can fold that shirt. Maybe it can fold another that's very similar, maybe only different in colour, but don't bet your money on it. A robot folds a shirt and you think it can fold a tee? Not unless it's explicitly trained to fold that one tee, too.
- giarc 4mo agoI think blankets are harder simply because of their size. I often have to "whip" the blanket to get the other end to properly fold on itself. I also use a much large space because of the size (often the floor). Could a robot fold a big blanket? Probably? But what is the success rate going to be? If I just have to refold it 50% of the time, is that actually worth it?