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Shift will clean homes for free to train future robots

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

#51

Post by olyjohn »

aleyan wrote: post #29

"I always thought that Homejoy were planning to automate as much as possible, if not everything, related to cleaning services using robotics and stuff, and that humans were only a temporary measure while developing technology." -devgutt 2015 [0] This quote about robots doing home cleaning has been living in my head rent free, and refusing to cleanup after itself, for over a decade. It seemed so crazy to me in 2015 th…

The Jetsons, where we polluted the Earth so badly, we had to live above the clouds. But at least we won't have to pick up our clothes.

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

#52

Post by bluGill »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #23
hsnv wrote: 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…

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…

I have a bidet to help wipe my bottom... It isn't enough that I can skip wiping completely, but it greatly reduces that chore.

I sometimes dream of being rich enough to afford a servant to do this for me. But realistically even if I was that rich I wouldn't subject someone to that indignity.

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

#53

Post by ryandrake »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #23
hsnv wrote: 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…

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 well mow that lawn yourself. Paying someone any amount of money is a waste.

I pretty much DIY everything around the house. I work hard for my money, and it feels lazy and wasteful to just ship it off to someone else to do what I am fully capable of doing myself. Maybe when I'm 80 and have trouble walking, I'll pay someone to move furniture around or wash my roof. But not while I'm able bodied.

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

#54

Post by Krasnol »

stickfigure wrote: post #33

Seems like a relevant time to post this Danny Gonzales video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N24UqL389rs You will be amused.

The company’s last video is 4 weeks old!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N24UqL389rs

I'm astonished they (sill) exist. The idea is so beyond stupid, I thought it was a joke at first.

I'm still not really sure that its not one...interesting times.

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

#55

Post by autoexec »

aleyan wrote: post #29

"I always thought that Homejoy were planning to automate as much as possible, if not everything, related to cleaning services using robotics and stuff, and that humans were only a temporary measure while developing technology." -devgutt 2015 [0] This quote about robots doing home cleaning has been living in my head rent free, and refusing to cleanup after itself, for over a decade. It seemed so crazy to me in 2015 th…

> It seemed so crazy to me in 2015 that anyone would seriously consider home cleaning robots to be on a realistic timeline. Yet here we are in 2026 and robots could plausibly clean our homes beyond vacuuming and mopping.

I don't think that they can plausibly clean our homes. I don't think it's much different from back in 2015 when everyone was talking about self-driving cars and auto-pilot yet here we are over a decade later and nobody is getting into their car and then taking a nap on the way to the office. Most people don't have any kind of "self-driving" car today at all. My guess is that if we have housecleaning robots in 2036 they'll be shitty at it and very much watered down from the Jetsons style future tech companies want you to daydream about today.

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

#56

Post by rglover »

Ha! My wife just asked me about a random job she found on Craigslist the other day. It was for what looked like a shell company, offering $10/hr to have you strap a camera to your head while you do specific chores like laundry, dishes, etc. She asked me what I thought it was and I said "someone is farming training data." Turns out.

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

#57

Post by bayarearefugee »

nlh wrote: post #35
jrmg wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the same until we started getting our house cleaned every two weeks. It’s so freeing . It feels well worth even a few hours of my work to pay for the time of the (so efficient) cleaners. So much better value than things most people don’t think twice about paying for (streaming services, faster Internet, a nice car, etc…)

I'll take it one step further - we have a 2-year-old toddler and recently I realized that I was spending a full, solid, real 1-1.5 hours per day doing the same kitchen & play area clean-up. Every day. No matter how hard I tried, the daily chaos of my wife & I working from home, preparing meals, and our family spending time in this part of the house meant it just needed this work. I hired a lovely person recently who…

I can see the charm in hiring a cleaning person you trust, but I personally wouldn't extend that to paying a faceless corporation to send a robot to do it.

I'd much rather pay a nice human significantly more money than have it done by a stinking robot.

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

#58

Post by sailfast »

hsnv wrote: 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…

I would love for a robot to wipe me after using the toilet - and I have a washlet for this!

It’s not about tax bracket. You can still pay your cleaning folks a reasonable wage and be kind to them. You can still treat them like human beings. It’s vulnerable to have another person tidy up after you, but fine in the end. Turns out vacuuming isn’t really that personal.

It’s one thing to have NEVER done the mundane chores and entirely another to save some time in your day while you’re at work to have someone help with it.

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

#59

Post by bluGill »

reaperducer wrote: post #21
hsnv wrote: 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…

Maybe I grew up in the wrong tax bracket. I knew a middle-aged waitress who had a cleaning woman come in every week or two. After being on her feet for 10 hours dealing with jerks in a diner six days a week, she was too tired to do more than basic cleaning. The price was well worth it to her.

The real question isn't how much money you have when in the middle class, it is what will you give up. I have hired cleaners and I love the time savings, but it isn't worth it to me so I almost never do.

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

#60

Post by charcircuit »

m463 wrote: post #28
sonofhans wrote: post #5

”We get training data.” E.g., photos of your children, an inventory of your books, the contents of your medicine cabinet. They may not have plans to sell this stuff, but whoever acquires them certainly will.

Slum lords will love this between renters. or airbnb owners. Even though it is free, they could even take it from the deposit of renters moving out.

I would prefer that $0 for cleaning gets taken out of my deposit.
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