Post #1355069

2026-04-11 20:43 UTC

A couple of people wrote to me to say that they are annoyed that we built robots to make “art” (scare quotes) when we should be making robots to do laundry. And aside from the fact that unless you do take your laundry to the river to wash it, you already have a robot that does 90% of the work (and I can respect wanting automation for the other 10%)… We don’t have robots (chatbots) that make art or write code either! They do an average job of some things, poor at others, and you can’t rely on them at all. If this is “AI”, I want it nowhere near my laundry. Our 2020s tech industry loves to automate the easy part and hand-wave away the part that matters. The chatbots can’t do anything; they can only do the pointless parts, the boilerplate, the busywork. This is not the work. Humans still have to do this and the chatbots make it harder because they have to sift through bullshit to do so. Keep Sam Altman the fuck away from my chores. He’ll just break all my dishes and dye my t-shirts blue.

Replies (4)

@cargot_robbie@urbanists.social 2026-04-11 21:37

@samir LLMs would absolutely throw a bright red sock into every other load of laundry.

Open ##1355143
@TimWardCam@c.im 2026-04-11 22:02

@samir "And aside from the fact that unless you do take your laundry to the river to wash it, you already have a robot that does 90% of the work (and I can respect wanting automation for the other 10%)…" I guess the ironing might only be 10% but it still would be nice to get rid of having to do it ...

Open ##1355144
@mpbarlow@mastodon.social 2026-04-12 12:00

@samir > Our 2020s tech industry loves to automate the easy part and hand-wave away the part that matters Which itself is pretty much just what Brooks warned about in No Silver Bullet back in the 80s. We’re pouring hundreds of billions into something that in the absolute best case scenario (for boosters) would only address accidental complexity, and expecting somehow essential complexity will disappear too

Open ##1355163
@martin_t@mastodon.social 2026-04-13 09:38

RE: https://mastodon.functional.computer/@samir/116388015824694842 @samir Yes, it is "AI" (with the quotes being a key component). What it's not is what I call aAI (actual AI) - the thing that works like the AI in sci-fi, namely gives correct and complete answers or signals when it cannot do so. So any time I see anyone use AI without either the quotes or the leading a, I know they have not understood the difference yet. What is more scary though is if somebody makes aAI and the owner class replaces most workers with it...

Open ##1355165