We Are Wasting Our Time

I watched a video of a robot folding sheets. Not sheets of steel or uranium or something toxic. Sheets that go on a bed. Folding them. So that they can be put in a closet. Laundry.

This robot? $12k. Twelve Thousand Dollars to fold sheets. What in the holy hell is that?

I’m not stupid and I’m not being disingenuous here about what that means. The dexterity to fold a sheet implies the dexterity to perform complex tasks. Given that this is a machine, those tasks could be completed in environments that are not safe for humans or compatible with human life. That’s huge!

But please, please, please get the fuck out of here with the folding of sheets and the making of coffee and the Jettson’s level of tasks for rich people. That’s fucked up. We don’t need Rosie. We need R2-D2. We need robots that are Swiss Army Knives - even if they speak in a language that isn’t entirely human friendly.

We Have Real Challenges

For decades (since we’re in the Delay phase of Deny, Distract, Delay with Climate Change) politicians and technologists have talked about how we as a species can engineer our way out of a climate catastrophe. Right now the only things that I see in place for that are the micropayment structure for oxygen and water and surveillance to see who might be drinking or breathing illegally. If we’re even going to try to save what’s left of our burning ecosystem, we might want to spend less time with robots that fold sheets and more time on robots that maximize solar collection and water purification. How about a robot that collects microplastics from water supplies?

Or R2-D2.