Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

users.wpi.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 468 posts

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#111

Post by ern_ave »

WillAdams wrote: post #98

One thing which I find striking here is that a modern home and attendant conveniences roughly embodies 10--15 horsepower of effort, or the work of 40 or so full time house staff. Thus far, the only notable robots are little disks which vacuum up floors (and they're getting outlawed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49104371 ) and some innovations just haven't become widespread (an uncle of mine piped his home for…

> What will be the first device to bottle up AI and other modern technologies in a package and become widely in-demand

One problem I see is that corporations insist on collecting and reselling our data. As a result, a lot of people are reticent to get much automation. They seem to accept it with TVs, but other devices - it's just too much of an intrusion.

I say "a lot of people" but I don't know how many people it is, exactly.

There was recently a bit of a controversy with a refrigerator that had a big monitor on the door. That could actually be a cool feature: it could show you what's inside before you open the door. You could access it remotely if you're at the store and trying to remember if you have milk at home. But of course, the company started putting ads on it, and undoubtedly they're selling your data.

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#112

Post by mrguyorama »

philosopherNoob wrote: post #20

Though it makes me mourn for life lost when I read it even now, I never cared much for “There Will Come Soft Rains”. It’s a story exploring how what we make could continue on without us (for a time). But “The Pedestrian” (1951) is included at the end. It’s the last two pages out of that six page PDF. I think that one’s more apt to modern life. I read that one ages ago and it unsettled me.

I have a friend who often goes for walks at midnight or later, around a rather nice part of town.

He gets the cops called on him regularly. It's insane.

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#113

Post by bigfishrunning »

WillAdams wrote: post #98

One thing which I find striking here is that a modern home and attendant conveniences roughly embodies 10--15 horsepower of effort, or the work of 40 or so full time house staff. Thus far, the only notable robots are little disks which vacuum up floors (and they're getting outlawed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49104371 ) and some innovations just haven't become widespread (an uncle of mine piped his home for…

the real problem with household robots is that they are either flimsy toys or dangerous machines, and there's not much in-between. If we were to build a humanoid robot that would just put laundry away (as described in a HN article a few weeks ago), it would need to be strong enough to lift a laundry basket, have advanced control systems to go up and down stairs, and also be safe/reliable/trusted enough not to hurt people or damage property. We can do these things (modulo the trust, probably) but the confluence of all of it gets very expensive very quickly.

People want Rosie from the Jetsons, but the compute power required would be astronomical, the mechanical systems would need maintenance, and there would be real safety concerns.

With LLMs, we've got the wisecracking figured out...

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#115

Post by throwawayffffas »

WillAdams wrote: post #98

One thing which I find striking here is that a modern home and attendant conveniences roughly embodies 10--15 horsepower of effort, or the work of 40 or so full time house staff. Thus far, the only notable robots are little disks which vacuum up floors (and they're getting outlawed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49104371 ) and some innovations just haven't become widespread (an uncle of mine piped his home for…

https://www.weaverobotics.com/

And Toyota robotics has been trying to solve loading dishwashers for at least 7 years.

And that's all the housework required really, vacuuming, mopping, dishwasher un/loading, picking random stuff off the floor, dusting is another minor thing to have done.

The vast majority of labor has already been solved with dishwashers and washing machines and dryers, electric ovens and stoves.

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#117

Post by purpleflame1257 »

butlike wrote: post #96
nahuel0x wrote: post #86

USSR animated version (1984): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oxP3TyuQx0

Where'd the Turkey dinner come from if it's a nuclear wasteland? All joking aside; an excellent animation

Bradbury actually anticipated this on the Martian side and explicitly calls out frozen dinners.

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#118

Post by jhbadger »

butlike wrote: post #96
nahuel0x wrote: post #86

USSR animated version (1984): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oxP3TyuQx0

Where'd the Turkey dinner come from if it's a nuclear wasteland? All joking aside; an excellent animation

I think the idea is that the house had large amounts of storage and freezers that it could use to get ingredients for meals which it then cooked.

Re: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

#120

Post by Multicomp »

WillAdams wrote: post #98

One thing which I find striking here is that a modern home and attendant conveniences roughly embodies 10--15 horsepower of effort, or the work of 40 or so full time house staff. Thus far, the only notable robots are little disks which vacuum up floors (and they're getting outlawed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49104371 ) and some innovations just haven't become widespread (an uncle of mine piped his home for…

Only new models of robots are banned, FCC approval of previous devices still stands and therefore we can continue to purchase those models. They will just get additionally out of date.

> However, the US ban only covers new advanced robot models, not existing products that have already received FCC equipment authorization for sale in the US. The "action does not impact a consumer’s continued use of devices they previously acquired," the FCC says. "Nor does it prevent retailers from continuing to sell, import, or market relevant models approved previously.”

Post reply on HN