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My recent post on Mastodon:
Why are the robots creating art and the humans packing boxes?
There is way more robots packing boxes than taking art and writing jobs. Take a look at modern warehouse logistics they are pretty fucking cool.
We’ve had the software to automate loading and unloading the dishwasher for a long time now.
Making the hardware reliable and affordable is what stands between us and fully automated household chores.
My robot vacuum is affordable but gets stuck on things often enough that I just rather vacuum manually once a week instead of daily rescue missions.
I just wanna say that while I agree with the sentiment of the post, AI has nothing to do with this.
We’ve had dishwashers and laundry machines that are super efficient and effective for many years. A lot of those chores are being done for you by automation.
LLMs have much fewer practical applications
I’m just pointing this out, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who will…
We have machines to do the laundry and dishes for us already. We just have to set them up (put stuff in them) and they do the job for us.
When was the last time you saw someone get out the washing board?
That still requires gathering the dirty items together, loading/unloading, keeping track of when it is full/time to run. People saying this mean they want a robot like Rosie from the Jetsons to take care of that sort of housekeeping, not for a machine that makes the task easier to do themself.
Edit: to be clear, I don’t think a washer machine or dishwasher is a hassle and problem that needs solving, but that doesn’t take away from the message of “AI should help make life easier, not replace the creative outlets additional free time should allow”
I would agree that’s what people mean, but they’re completely overlooking that the problem has already been recognised, and addressed, with a solution that’s been around for decades.
It’s just that people take these modern amenities for granted, so they see them as part of the burden of doing the dishes or doing laundry, rather than relieving the burden of doing those things.
We can load up the dish washer and sit on our duff watching YouTube while a machine does the hard work. Then we just have to suffer through putting the dishes where we want them to go.
This is textbook “first world problems”. AI is only expected to solve these first world problems. By definition, these problems are less actually problems that need solving, and more inconveniences that we perceive as problems.
I agree, and those “problems” will never be fixed by AI. Not everyone who laments that AI should make life easier is a supporter of AI, though. Sometimes it’s a general “[technological] advancement should be for the good of the people, not the good of the select shareholders”.
It’s always good for the shareholders, as long as they can monetize it
