Human-Level Folding
A few years ago, a butt of a joke was a robot that took ages to fold a single shirt. It was one of those “your tax dollars at work” type criticisms of funding of research.
But as Ye once sung in the song Gold Digger, “this week he moppin floors, next week it’s the fries” (maybe not a great idea to quote Kanye…).
The latest folding robot can do 40 items per hour with 93% accuracy though I’m not sure what accuracy measures in practice. That sounds faster than what I can fold with a toddler running around me.
Depending on what’s being folded, humans can generally do 120 items an hour, so we’re probably within realm of getting to human levels of folding within the next year or two. By 2025, we might see the first commercial offerings of a multi-dexterous and by the end of the decade for home use.
Foldimate and Foldbot flopped and there are already folding machines for towels and sheets for hospitality, but a house robot might may sense if it can make an ROI within a year at half the minimum wage.
