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Shift will clean homes for free to train future robots

theverge.com

211–220 of 272 posts

Re: Shift will clean homes for free to train future robots

#211

Looks to me like they want to get in on 3D mapping homes that haven't already been mapped by a Roomba or other similar bot. There is plenty of money to be made selling home layouts to police. At the same time the customer's home is being cleaned, all objects can be scanned to data-mine the customer's shopping preferences. Maybe training AI and bots is part of what they're trying to accomplish, but I just can't help w…

Yeah, definitely. On one hand it's obvious such companies will want this data precisely to make their systems work. On the other hand... once they have the data, we all know it also ends up wherever someone is willing to pay for it. Even if they say it's not the goal today... 10 years from now how do you know the owner of the data at that point will feel the same way? Doubly so since they don't seem to be making any…

> OTOH, there are definitely jobs which get conflated as having a low barrier to entry (for the average person) but actually take many years of training to be able to get a typical job in

Isn't the barrier to entry due to the jobs not allowing for mistakes? Cleaning has a high tolerance for mistakes (e.g. missing bits, leaving streaks on windows etc) and so it's fine for an inexperienced cleaner to learn from their mistakes whilst doing the job. However, people would not be happy for a lawyer or surgeon to be learning from their mistakes whilst working - they are expected to already be competent and mistakes are generally very damaging.

Re: Shift will clean homes for free to train future robots

#212

Looks to me like they want to get in on 3D mapping homes that haven't already been mapped by a Roomba or other similar bot. There is plenty of money to be made selling home layouts to police. At the same time the customer's home is being cleaned, all objects can be scanned to data-mine the customer's shopping preferences. Maybe training AI and bots is part of what they're trying to accomplish, but I just can't help w…

If the service is free, the product is you.

Re: Shift will clean homes for free to train future robots

#213

Looks to me like they want to get in on 3D mapping homes that haven't already been mapped by a Roomba or other similar bot. There is plenty of money to be made selling home layouts to police. At the same time the customer's home is being cleaned, all objects can be scanned to data-mine the customer's shopping preferences. Maybe training AI and bots is part of what they're trying to accomplish, but I just can't help w…

There is plenty of money to be made selling home layouts to police Is there?

I can totally imagine the sales pitch to police departments: before you bust down the door of the local journalist who criticized you, look up their home floor plan and review 360 camera footage of each room, so you can get to their laptop before it locks when your surveillance team detects they’ve stepped away to use the bathroom.

Re: Shift will clean homes for free to train future robots

#214
post #6

I've always found the idea of letting strangers clean my home strange. Maybe I grew up in the wrong tax bracket. I see cleaning your own home, as well as other chores (dishes, laundry) as an act of self-hygiene. If you want a robot to do your chores, that gives me the same feeling as desiring a robot to bathe you, wipe your bottom and genitals after the toilet, brush your teeth for you etc. Of course these are not ap…

Do you feel the same way about walking? If you wanted to get anywhere on land pre Bronze age your only option was to walk. Then we started riding horses, later we invented carriages, much much later bicycles, cars, and airplanes. Do these also take away something about being a living, breathing being? Do you feel that your life is lessened by these options?

A different question is. Imagine that you are living with a partner and you agree on a distribution of labour. Let’s say you do the hunting and your partner cleans the house. They are happy with the agreement and fully consent to it. Do you feel it takes away from you being a living, breathing being?

Re: Shift will clean homes for free to train future robots

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> brush your teeth for you aka electric toothbrush > wipe your bottom and genitals after the toilet aka a bidet (or a toilet seat with a bidet) > robot to bathe you aka a shower > dishes aka a dishwasher > laundry aka a washer If you want to do stuff yourself, use a manual toothbrush, learn how to wash your own clothes without a washer (people do this all the time, BTW), wash your own dishes without a dishwasher, don…

Maybe things have changed but finances mostly forced my kids and those in the neighborhood to grow up this way. No dishwasher, bidet (we're in the US anyway), electric toothbrush, and definitely cooked all meals. Maybe takeout pizza or chinese every couple months? Is this really so outlandish to you?

Well, if everyone would find living the old way perfectly normal, as you and me do, how would the big guys get their ROI and become even bigger?

One does not simply invest in something new without any effort to make the old look medievally obscurant.

Re: Shift will clean homes for free to train future robots

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My home layout was approved by the local council, and is freely available for anyone to see. I get personal belongings, but who cares about home layout?

You are conflicting room layout to home layout. In genreal, blueprints or something similar are available. Where your bed, sofa, and tables are located isn't.

"Abort! Abort! The bastard is painting. He's moved the sofa."

Re: Shift will clean homes for free to train future robots

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's a tax bracket thing, or even necessarily a culture/upbringing thing --> I was brought up white-collar working middle class -ish (Eastern European middle-class, which probably doesn't map cleanly to North American middle class; buying a bottle of coke was a Birthday thing), but then was refugee from a civil war for a while, with the appropriate tax bracket. And my grandma certainly instilled much of…

The way I see it is: My time is worth $0 unless I'd otherwise be earning money . So if you're an hourly contract worker, and you would otherwise be billing $100/hr to write code or something, then it makes sense to pay a gardener to mow your lawn and a plumber to fix your toilet, as long as it's less than you're making. But instead, if you'd otherwise just be doom scrolling on your phone or jerking off, you might as…

>"My time is worth $0 unless I'd otherwise be earning money."

That's the key insight and difference, and not one we can necessarily persuade each other :). My time is worth a LOT to me. I can use the time to play with my kids, be with my wife, play a video game or a musical instrument, read a book, or even doomscroll, if that's what my brain needs at the time. These are things that bring me joy, and mowing the lawn doesn't. I spend a lot of my time doing things out of necessity that don't bring me joy. I have precious little time for things that do bring me joy. I'm not looking to optimize for things I hate.

Don't get me wrong, as I said, I DO laundry and dishes and cleaning and stupid lawn mowing (grr!) and some repairs etc (I don't even have a rumba :). I used to do more car maintenance myself. But when I do bring somebody in to do the work, I do not feel guilty about it - I work my ass off doing things I'm good at and being paid for it, and in turn I sometimes pay others who are way better and more efficient at something than I am :).

Milleage may vary :).

Re: Shift will clean homes for free to train future robots

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But instead, if you'd otherwise just be doom scrolling on your phone or jerking off, you might as well mow that lawn yourself. Paying someone any amount of money is a waste. It sounds like you're saying "pay someone to save you time if you use the time to work, but not if you use the time to relax". One of the best possible uses of money is to save you time, no matter what you use the time for.

Mowing the lawn relaxes me. I find it meditative, and at the end I look back at the neatly cut grass and can see what I've done. It provides a sense of satisfaction. It's also a good excuse to get off my ass for a couple of hours and get a little exercise.

Exactly.

Let us understand each other that mowing the lawn relaxes some people, and to others it elevates anxiety and brings the sense of existential dread and time rapidly slipping through our fingers in meaningless repetitive kafkian never-ending tasks required by society for arbitrary unjustified reasons instead :-).

Re: Shift will clean homes for free to train future robots

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to post exactly this. Is there, really?

I would guess so, they seem interested in the ring cameras https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2025/09/30/ring-police-partn...

The cost of sharing recordings of video you collect anyway is near 0, and this provides videos of public places.

What's the value of a recording inside my house to the police? That requires paying a human to go around recording it?

Re: Shift will clean homes for free to train future robots

#220

Looks to me like they want to get in on 3D mapping homes that haven't already been mapped by a Roomba or other similar bot. There is plenty of money to be made selling home layouts to police. At the same time the customer's home is being cleaned, all objects can be scanned to data-mine the customer's shopping preferences. Maybe training AI and bots is part of what they're trying to accomplish, but I just can't help w…

There is plenty of money to be made selling home layouts to police Is there?

yeah the parent was a rather dumb comment. police don't buy intelligence on the population en mass. how could they afford it snd how could they use it without probable cause? if you are already a target of an investigation they can get a warrant for free with due process.
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