>> Laundry and tidying are valuable because they recur, generate messy edge cases and create training data. They are also privacy-sensitive and physically variable in ways that robot demos tend to hide.
It's the WISYWYG model of AI: when you watch a video of a (usually humanoid) robot folding laundry, tying shoelaces, hanging shirts etc, it's hard to appreciate the specificity of the observed performance. Which is extreme: a robot folding a t-shirt can only fold that one t-shirt in the video unless it's been explicitly trained to fold... another one. You need to train for every single t-shirt, every single shoe whose laces you want to tie up etc [1].
It's hard to believe because we expect a humanoid that can fold one t-shirt to be able to fold any t-shirt and usually also many if not all other kinds of clothing. But that's not how it works with robots, or in any case their AI. Hence the need to teleoperate.
Btw, no, Transformers have not yet revolutionised the field [2].
As to "fake it 'till you [have enough data to train a super-capable AI and] make it" that's the same bet made by Tesla and its autopilot, and there's still not enough data for a safe/ level-4/5 self-driving car, despite all the cars that Tesla has sold. Nor, dear reader, are Waymo robotaxis level 5 yet (despite them being apparently much safe than anyone else's SDCs).
>> Beds, made. Pillows, blankets, kids' and pets' toys, shoes, back where they belong.
No way modern AI can figure out where "kids' and pets' toys, shoes" belong. As if there's such a thing anyway.
>> With Laundry Flow, Isaac 1 goes beyond folding, finding and picking up dirty clothes and handling loaded hampers.
I put my dirty laundry in a plastic bug under a kitchen cupboard.
Will Isaac 1 be able to deal with it?
:angel eyes:
___________________
[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/12/02/a-revolution-i...
Check out the bit where the reporter asks "If I gave it my shoe (...) would it totally fail?".
[2] Mac Schwager: How General are Generalist Robot Policies?
https://youtu.be/C4NQNeSO2vs?si=7J3Is_WyZc3L0lQk