DishwasherBench – Can Frontier Models Stack a Dishwasher?

11 days ago (github.com)

The obvious fork is "can frontier models stack a dishwasher to my wife's exacting standards".

I can't. So that would surely be proof of AGI.

  • "In every partnership, there is a person who stacks the dishwasher like a Scandinavian architect and a person who stacks the dishwasher like a raccoon on meth." - Someone online.

    At home I'm the architect, my wife's the raccoon. I don't actually believe that you can stack the dishwasher wrong as such, but you can make it hard for yourself to unload, if you don't sort the items correctly.

    • In my dishwasher (some bosch almost identical to the model in the simulation), if you put plastic storage containers upside down on the bottom rack, the force of the jets flip them over and they fill up and don't get clean. They also end up using more water (I think?) because there is water trapped in the dishwasher at the end of the cycle, and things don't dry. Also, if you put large things in particular places they prevent the jet arms from rotating.

      Dishwasher physics matter. But I would never criticize a person in my family for loading the dishwasher the "wrong" way; I just sneak in and reorganize when nobody's looking.

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    • > I don't actually believe that you can stack the dishwasher wrong as such

      There are definitely more and less correct ways, but personally i think it's "wrong" to load it in a way that leaves the arms blocked or (not) tilt pieces that get excessive water pooling on top

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    • > I don't actually believe that you can stack the dishwasher wrong as such

      You most definitely can, they're not magic! The water must hit the right spots and obviously stacking three plates without any space between leads to stuff not getting properly cleaned.

      If you try to teach a kid to put the dishwasher you'll learn a ton of wrong ways of doing it! :)

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    • shouldn't stacking like a raccoon on meth be the most optimal way though? since if they're too well stacked you risk water being unable to enter tight places

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    • > I don't actually believe that you can stack the dishwasher wrong as such

      I read our dishwashers manual and was surprised at the significant amount of detail about how to position silverware for optimal cleaning (e.g. where to place small spoons, where to place forks, where to place large spoons, etc.)

    • > but you can make it hard for yourself to unload if you don’t sort the items correctly.

      I learned a long time ago that the ability to recognize and exploit a structured system is the most emotionally satisfying thing in the world.

  • Never have truer words been spoken, I too score poorly on DishwasherBench wife mode. Drives her up the wall.

    • At our place it's opposite, I guess when you do it often enough you get a preferred method though a relentless optimization loop, which in the end ensures it's all clean, the plates are well separated only in 1 particular order, the glasses are placed to the left so all small pans fit at the right, deep plates are placed half over cutlery rack so they are supported and more fit in, small plates in front so all lids fit before them... etc etc etc.

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Inspired by Joma Tech's new YouTube video

Stacked loads are run against a dishwasher simulation calibrated to my own Bosch dishwasher

Playable by both humans and AI

Currently a WIP, simulations need refining before running a full benchmark, but keen to hear some feedback!

  • Very cool and fun idea. This is a meta comment about the repo readme - there is an immense amount of what I would call ‘complaint smuggling’ / diffidence in the readme - basically Claude is uncomfortable about some of the claims vis a vis the status and embeds those negative feelings everywhere.

    I suggest you have it scrub all of this from the readme; you’ll likely need to give it a few examples. It will improve readability a lot, and be less fatiguing to read. Plus if you scrub it all you won’t reprompt that attitude every time an agent reads the readme.

    Btw I got Claude to give me the name “complaint smuggling” by giving it ten examples and asking it for a name. it’s an error pattern that’s so common I wanted to know what the model thought of it as - makes communicating about it really simple.

Can anyone confirm whether it simulates the spinning arm getting stuck on an item that juts downward through the top tray - thereby stopping the whole load from being washed properly.

Thats the most common problem in my dishwasher. It kindof looks like it would simulate that but they dont spell it out.

Come to think of it, if the players dont have an option to "spin the spinner by hand to make sure its not catching on anything" they're going to be in for a rough ride.

For added difficulty, have it 'stack' a 3D rendered volumetric plastic model of a pelican riding a bicycle, like if it were putting a child's toy in the dishwasher.

I love these novel ways to benchmark LLMs. I created one myself, I figured creating a programming language designed to confuse LLMs would be a good test, and it does seem to be: https://bench.killswitch-lang.org/.

I wonder if anyone has crafted a LLM benchmarks list website/github.

Years ago after my wife filled the dishwasher I commented that it looked like a 12-year-old filled it. I said it as a joke but it really hurt her and I still feel bad about it. That said, it no longer looks like that when she fills it...

Perhaps a better question would be "can frontier models write a program to effectively stack a dishwasher?"

  • yea super interesting q

    my feeling is that stacking a dishwasher involves enough image processing and computer-use (or more realistically robotics) that it's a frontier model job rather than a 'write a program to do it' job

    but keen to hear if you disagree

I have to admit that for many years I assumed a dishwasher physically filled the entire chamber with hot water to wash dishes. Then, one day a person opened up a dishwasher while it was running, took out a plate, clicked start, and closed the washer. My mental model literally changed in an instant.

This is so cool!

Imagine creating real simulated env for every physical task and using RL to train robots. That will be a game changer.

Both models’ loads came out 84-100% clean, so is the score mostly just how much they fit?

  • Totally the opposite, there's a detailed dishwasher simulation under the hood: ray tracing, splash simulation, soak, heat, enzyme action

    I calibrated it against my actual dishwasher by doing some test runs with baked egg

    • As we know from physics, even the most sophisticated mechanisms (e.g. friction) often ends up having a very simple model (proportional to the normal force).

      Sooo, the score is maybe mostly just how much they fit?

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  • sure the code isn't hand-written and it's a work in progress, but it's designed to be modelled and calibrated around my own dishwasher so it's verifiably non-slop