Some of the earliest interactive programmers, students at MIT, built the first word processor and the first digital music players and dubbed them Expensive Typewriter and Expensive Tape Recorder, respectively. They were well-named, since the machine they ran on cost about $120,000 in 1962. But despite their outsize cost, they represented a huge technological breakthrough: they were the first really interactive programs, giving instant feedback rather than requiring a “batch” run using punch cards that gave results hours or days later.
Now let me introduce you to the modern equivalents, Expensive Dishwasher and the Expensive Shirt-Folder. These are robots that perform tasks that are ridiculously simple for us but incredibly hard for machines.
Believe it or not, the videos above are evidence of a huge breakthrough akin to that of the MIT hackers. As I’ve been noting for awhile, to date robots have been struggling mightily just to walk across a room or kick a football, nevermind mastering fine motor skills and using them in random AirBnBs.
The company behind this huge advancement appears to be the real deal, with serious funding and star engineers. They’re not alone in the race to build Rosey either. Don’t fire your cleaner just yet, but this bodes well for significant automation in 2026.