Of all the tasks I do, folding clothes takes a ridiculously small slice of my time. Is this and all the other robotics videos aimed at H&M staff?
Folding fabric has traditionally been very hard to solve with robots; the ideal places to grab the fabric might be hidden, the fabric patterns are repetitive, and the material flops around, tangles in the grippers, and brings other pieces of laundry with it.
Successfully sorting and folding a basket of laundry shows they've got a control system capable of performing some quite difficult tasks.
So it cannot be that simple (for the reasons you mentioned).
10 minutes later you are at the washing machine, where you'll never be able to fit all laundry so it's two runs minimum. Somebody will hopefully in advance, but probably only prompted by your call around the house mention a number of particular items will be needed later today, certainly before the second load will be dry. You are now searching for those items. Or arguing for why you really don't have time and parents are humans too and not unpaid servants.
Another 10 minutes later the first load is washing. You set a timer, or perhaps have a machine that pings you when done. Of course, you have More Shit To Do, so you don't notice your alarm or ping and by the end of the morning when you hoped to sit down to enjoy maybe a whole 15 minutes of reading move the first load to the dryer and put the second load on. You discover that somebody never emptied the dryer. Finders keepers!
1,5hr later you fortunately do not miss the alarm and take our the dry but not 100% dry laundry and move the second load to dry.
3hr later you empty the second dryer load, because the run took longer because nobody ever fucking cleans the lint-container. At least you had time to fold (which to the many item-types in your household and your poor fine motor control certainly does not take you _just_ 15 minutes). A cat decides to kick over a pile and leave hair in a second pile, causing you to redo some work. 30 minutes in your are done and finally have time to fold the second driers worth.
Do you get it now?
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57691415
It is important to remember that China is not only about open weight LLMs, fastest cars and flying taxis. There is still a lot of very serious human right abuse going on in this country.
I don't think it serves much purpose tbh -- it's not going to change anyone's mind.
But maybe once in a while we need to remind ourselves that the world is more than stock prices and LM arena benchmarks?
Unfortunately, there are very few, if any, countries remaining where human rights abuses are not frequent, so mentioning them in unrelated technology discussions has become non-relevant.
I have a dishwasher so I do minimal washing up. I don't have a dryer as I air-dry my laundry but I could get one if I wanted to. I have a Roborock although I don't use it much since having a toddler.
But folding laundry is the one chore which still can't be automated. Even cooking itself has become much easier with air fryers etc.
But it is an urban legend of sorts, along with "baby strollers with chain tracks instead of wheels", and shows how little most of us know about industrial manufacturing.
There's already a better system today: mine launchers (remote minelaying system)