How the f**k do we have functional AI that speaks like a human and solves general problems on the level of a university student, but somehow household chores are still done with tech that was invented 50-100 years ago?! Why isn't there just a hole in my kitchen counter where I can dump dirty dinnerware, pots, pans; the machine sorts it out, washes it, and returns it to the cupboard? Why doesn't my washing machine sort by color, wash, dry, fold, and stack my clothes? Why do I still have to clean surfaces in my house by manually rubbing a wet sponge at them for hours?
I'll tell you what I think: inequality. Women did house chores, men invented shit that was fun and useful to them. Maybe as the world moves, hopefully, toward more equality we will find that people who shares their time between chores and inventing stuff will start to actually tackle the problem of simplifying boring chores.
I mean washing machines and dishwashers are already a very huge simplification on those tasks.
The problem with the automatically putting away and folding is that those are much harder problems or rather very expensive compared to someone just doing it.
Because AI and robotics are completely different thing. AI is software, so it can just use the well developed computer hardware we have, has no intrinsic material cost, can be taught by YouTube videos and be made by anyone with some technical knowledge and a computer.
Whereas moving objects around requires robotics which, while mu h more accessible than it used to be, still requires specific parts, which can cost quite a lot and denying on the project night have to be custom made, and you need an actual lab/workshop to do anything remotely high end or reliable. And then when you have a design for your dish washing robot you jave to pay the material costs and labour for each one you want to make, whereas an AI you can send the binaries of the bot around for free and run it on existing hardware people have.