13 ms·
Ask HN: If you could automate anything, what would you automate?
Try to ignore the cost of creating it. You can assume automation is free, money and time wise.
- jenscow 9y agoEverything
- miguelrochefort 9y agoUI design and implementation.
- sigjuice 9y agoEverything. If you do something twice, you are doing it wrong.
- tagami 9y agoHaving sex only once would be so sad...
- throwaway2016a 9y agoRelevant XKCD you need to read https://xkcd.com/1205/ https://xkcd.com/1205/
- jmmcd 9y agoThe question asks us to ignore time and cost!
- throwaway2016a 9y agoI know you're getting down voted but you make a very valid point about the way the question is phrased. Perhaps you shouldn't have been down voted so harshly.
- darafsheh 9y agoDeployment of open source applications that are time consuming and painful to install and configure. I've started a project to automate this already => https://serviceshop.io https://serviceshop.io
- throwaway2016a 9y agoKudos on launching your startup. It looks like a great service. I went to it at first thinking it didn't add any value over just launching the service in a Docker swarm (most open source apps have pre-built containers now) but I see the enterprise options as a good value add.
- SirLJ 9y agoIf I have to do something twice, I would look to automate it. The best thing so far is my stock market trading robots, been doing it for years with a great results. e.g. making more money on average compared to 6 digits salary... Too bad I love my job too much or I would have retired already...
- juancampa 9y agoDo you have a strategy that you're able to share?
- schappim 9y agoThe tips in SieLJ’s HN Bio might be interesting for you: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=SirLJ https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=SirLJ
- juancampa 9y ago"There is no luck in life (unless you win the lottery), the rest is a lot of hard work... e.g. the more you work, the luckier you’ll get" - SirLJ
- SirLJ 9y agoI am sorry, but I cannot share anything, event the systems that are not working... Let's face it: we are competing in the stock market every day, so why I should help you to get edge over me?... Frankly this is the best side business in the world and I have to preserve it and hopefully one day leave it to my kids to continue...
- diab0lic 9y agoGiven the tips in your bio I assume you're trading on some set of metrics you've developed yourself. If I may pick your brain, and I understand that you may not be able to answer. - Are you trading on the order of minutes (or greater)? I assume from your bio tips that what you're suggesting doesn't require hft. - Do you have a book recommendation for the actual quantitative part of things? The domain knowledge of trading if you will. I'm most curious about this because I have plenty of experience implementing autonomous systems that act under risk but have little guidance for going from raw market data to signals. Thanks!
- VohuMana 9y agoDifficult: - Learning/Teaching - My money, not earning it (although that would be nice) but if there was some way to automate investing/saving/budgeting - Cleaning Less Difficult: - Transportation - Setting up new programming projects (depending what language you're using this has been done)
- bjourne 9y agoPhysical exercise.
- yazan94 9y agoThe irony in your comment is awesome
- colept 9y agoAutomate automation.
- AlSweigart 9y agoTeaching. All education politics aside, in my experience teaching is hard because you have to juggle and be responsive to so many people at the same time. Teaching is hard to scale. Everyone complains that schools are so regimented and conformist, but when YOU are the one in front of a group of two dozen (or three dozen!) kids who don't want to be there and are distracted by everything and you only have 90 minutes to get them through a lesson, you realize how hard it is to convey information. Especially since in every class there will be one or two kids who take up like 40% of your energy, and you end up completely ignoring self-disciplined kids. If there was a way we could provide automated teaching, that would be huge. And I mean teaching, not just making resources available. Stack Overflow and Wikipedia and Khan Academy are great, but they won't replace schools and teachers. An AI system that could motivate, answer questions, pose questions, encourage learning without judging failure, etc. would be wonderful.
- bewe42 9y agoAs a dev with constant pressure to learn new stuff I'd prefer the flip side: learning / acquiring relevant skills for my career. The perfect future AI-driven tutor that presents me exactly what I need to study and at the exact level of difficulty so that learning becomes fun and seemingly effortless (btw something I try to solve)
- Kapura 9y agoApplying to jobs. So many jobs corporate jobs require re-entering information ad infinitum already on a CV. My ideal world would be uploading a resume to one service and then having one-click applications that would give you a text field to write a cover letter or whatever non-CV info you want to give the hiring managers.
- gxs 9y agoLinkedIn aims to provide an experience like the one you've mentioned. It's been hit or miss and it gives them a little too much leverage, but it's been effective to some degree.
- patrickk 9y agoThe process is still very broken. I've applied for multiple jobs where I've been forced to use a site called successfactors.eu, and the interface leads you to think it's integrated with Linkedin ("apply with Linkedin" button), in reality you're forced to re-enter your CV data multiple times, or the data is all over the place after being imported. I'd much rather send my CV attached as a PDF along with a cover letter directly to a recruiter or HR person.
- synicalx 9y agoSome of the more... bespoke, (?) recruitment agencies will normally do this. I work with a recruiter locally who specialises recruiting for mid-senior Ops and Dev roles and has landed me a couple of very good contracts and one very good full time role over the last 5 years or so. In each case they've already taken on board my CV and distributed that info to their clients, meaning I don't have to stuff around with forms etc each time. Having said that, you really need to watch out for these kind of agencies. Some will just endlessly fling rubbish contracts at you and demand a new CV each time.
- jmmcd 9y agoEverything to do with rubbish: putting it out, collecting it, processing/separating it, dumping it.
- bm98 9y agoTime tracking. No matter how many fancy time tracking apps you use, it's still painfully manual. I want a robot that watches me and quietly makes intelligent decisions about what I'm really doing, and tracks that.
- WaxProlix 9y agoI'd maybe add expense tracking to that, too.
- kirillseva 9y agoThat's kind of easy to do these days. If you add one more requirement, "and doesn't spy on you" - the task becomes impossible
- ivm 9y agoOur automatic time tracking app doesn't spy on you: https://qotoqot.com/qbserve/ https://qotoqot.com/qbserve/ Though there's no mobile version because it stores everything locally.
- wink 9y agoI, too, wanted to start tracking this a bit but a) didn't want stuff to be uploaded anywhere b) didn't want to test a lot of apps c) am always up for a challenge So 2 weeks ago I dug out my long-forgotten knowledge about WINAPI and wrote something in Rust. It's an MVP - it queries the active window every second and writes a bit of info to a logfile in JSON format. Then I can run a python script on the daily log and analyze it. It's been fun, but you instantly notice a few things: a) using a "window changed" hook would be better, but mine's good enough for now, but this prepared b) idle times are important. Don't leave the computer and then wonder about off times. Current workaround: focus the media player window that's usually not really active c) dual monitors are really hard. There's 2 windows open - one on each monitor, only one will be tracked. d) Everything is hard, when I'm listening to a podcast during some other task that doesn't need much concentration, this won't be tracked. e) actual quality of the data. On the one hand I'm simply not interested in adding all my browser history to this via window titles. On the other hand, maybe you want finer-grained tracking. Same with songs played, videos watched for example. Mayyybeee it could make sense tracking source code files in your editor, but I think that's too finegrained. browser vs editor is good enough for me right now
- weej 9y agoHuman Gestation.
- devonkim 9y agoThis probably puts me in the “not a people person” camp but “Starting and maintaining business relationships.” Most great human interactions I’ve had simply have nothing to do with business. Yet relationships are so important to most businesses around the world, and simultaneously most of the motions seem really mundane and dull compared to family time, dating, or even sitting at a bar with a random stranger. Oh, and web infrastructure security and identity management including derivatives like ssh configurations. I have to do it every dang job I go to and despite it having surprisingly little deviance in terms of requirements in most places, nobody has the same setup. Ever. It drives me up the wall every time and it makes me somewhat dread starting new companies because it’s such a time sink yet so important.
- evandena 9y agoend to end certificate renewal and deployment. We're about 80% there, but the last 20% is a PITA.
- juancampa 9y agoI thought Let's Encrypt with ACME did this. What's the 20% you talk about. I'm interested.
- technion 9y ago- Appliances that have no scripting API and force you to install a certificate in the GUI (I have a lot of these) - Some Microsoft services that will only take a new certificate after a restart, causing downtime. You can automate it, but not every 90 days without upsetting people. - Political issues
- kirillseva 9y agoI'd automate automating things (aka strong AI)
- juancampa 9y agoFair enough. What would you have this AI do for you? Examples please
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- fulafel 9y agoCO2 footprint management and transparency.
- callmeed 9y agoLaundry. Collect it, wash it, dry it, fold it, steam/iron it (if necessary), put it away. I don't want to cummicate, coordinate, deliver, or pick-up. Just make it happen once a week and I'd pay a few hundred dollars a month.
- juancampa 9y agoI'm with ya. Hopefully something like Cleanly or Rinse is available where you are. They will wash/dry/fold/iron but won't put it away just yet and you also have to collect it, put it in a bag and give wait for them to pick it up.
- fwn 9y agoAlso buy the replacement for wearout.
- schappim 9y agoBelieve it or not there already is a laundry folding robot: https://foldimate.com https://foldimate.com
- juancampa 9y agoInteresting, wondering what's the input. Pieces one by one or (hopefully) just a blob of dry laundry
- bazizbaziz 9y agoAcquisition and administration of public housing projects. The world needs more publicly housing for people of all economic statuses. It seems incredibly time consuming to build or convert private housing due to vast amounts of paperwork and groups that must be involved to finance and manage these projects. Automation can help to find a business plan, search for funding, help run governance, and do accounting for the on-going operations.
- nuna 9y agoThe lab. too much human error from temporary unmotivated young workers.
- otakucode 9y agoExecutive class job operations. Imagine how much better the world would be if instead of having a half dozen executives breaking the companies back with absurd compensation packages, there was just an automated system that replaced their functionality. Employee increases in productivity could actually result in greater employee earnings! It would be like living before 1980 again!
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- eli_gottlieb 9y agoIt really seems like one of those jobs that ought to become a human being for "social stuff", largely assisted by, or even taking directions from, a machine learning system. Well, that, or an electorate of the company's workers. After all, in established firms, there often isn't a really clear relationship between executive compensation, executive hiring, and firm performance. Every position needs to pay for itself, these days, so if executives can't point to the revenue they've created...
- lanius 9y agoCooking. I cook my own meals in order to eat healthy, but the cooking itself is incredibly tedious.
- chadgeidel 9y agoI'd take this one step further. I love cooking, but not for every meal. Some way of automating the entire calorie delivery process with the correct amount of macro/micronutrients. Similar to Soylent - except tailored for me personally. I'd still cook a few meals a week and I'd still go out to dinner, but it would be a rare occasion.
- IdontRememberIt 9y ago"Life is 80% maintenance" so I would automate that. (Have I read this on Spielberg's Taken, episode 5?)
- shadyrudy 9y agoLaundry and dishes. Put them onto a little conveyor belt that goes somewhere. Everything gets cleaned, sanitized, pressed, dry cleaned, etc. The next day, everything appears back in my closet & cabinets.
- eykanal 9y agoStrongly recommend you watch Hans Rosling's TED talk on washing machines to realize how automated it already is: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_machine https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing... That said, I do still understand your point.
- jonnycoder 9y agoWith the ability for machine learning to recognize your dishes, cutlery and paper trash, a robot arm could pick up these objects while a pressure washer of hot water sprays and dries. Wrap this up in a box with a conveyor belt on the front and half the battle is done. Putting the dishes back in the cupboard is another matter. It seems like a robot would be easier to build than a big box that somehow integrates with existing cabinets and drawers.
- yourMadness 9y agoTalking sense into people. After that finding consensus in large groups of people.
- lev99 9y agoI'd automate cleaning. Dishes, laundry, cars, floors, walls, furniture, windows, lawns, roofs, pets, any of it and all of it. We have tools for making these tasks easier, but even with the latest technology the amount of human labor hours spent cleaning one individual and their environment is staggering. The benefits include not only a reduction in labor, but health and wellness benefits as well. In addition, cleaning automation has a history of being widely adopted. Almost everyone in the US uses dish washers and laundry machines. Roombas and automatic car washes are also widely distributed.
- eitland 9y agoTime sheets.
- AnimalMuppet 9y agoMeetings.
- md_ 9y agoIncome taxes.
- lostphilosopher 9y agoI've mentioned this on HN before, but: calorie and nutrition intake monitoring. Imagine an app that tells you how many calories you've consumed and the nutrition you've consumed in real time, with reasonable accuracy, without you having to manually input the food you've consumed. Like hands free MyFitnessPal. Couple that with what's already available in activity monitoring...
- tomjen3 9y agoI tried to figure out how make that some time ago - although my goto solution was cheap Indians rather than AI, but the problem boils down to the same thing anyone who has tried to diet this way finds: judging portions is really, really difficult. In matters a lot whether you put one or two teaspons of creamer in the coffee, and how much, if any, oil is over your salad.
- tomjen3 9y agoFood. Millions and millions of hours are wasted everyday by people as they scramble to prepare dinner. So many hours would be freed, so much health improved if all we had to do was grap a tasty, nutritiounes brick, that also filled us. I mean if you want to make food, that is great, but just like making your own furniture or sewing your own clothing it would be something most people didn't have to do.
- huydotnet 9y agoBathing
- z3t4 9y agoCleaning spam e-mail.
- gehwartzen 9y agoDe-cluttering my home and office space. The ability to take pictures of my entire living space, with every item in its place, to show a robot which then puts everything back into position every night. Maybe with the ability to add avoidance areas so my active work projects don't get disturbed.
- gsirbiladze 9y agoIncome
- koonsolo 9y agoBuying groceries, and I'm even willing to pick it up myself. I just want a smarphone app where I click "refill", and everything that is not in my fridge and shelves but should be, is ordered. I then go pick it up the next day. Nice extra: buys extra stock when discounted (taking expiration into account)
- throwaway2016a 9y agoLike https://www.peapod.com/ https://www.peapod.com/ but the items are chosen for you without you having to manually select each one?
- koonsolo 9y agoYes. I need some sort of smart fridge and shelves that know what is still there.
- vouhardy 9y agoI'd automate growth and blossom of nature
- davidivadavid 9y agoAnything people do in majority out of necessity and without enjoyment. Take your pick.
- triplee 9y agoCleaning my 22 year old's play area (which is basically the entire apt). And the entire laundry and dish process. My expenses for work. Telling people on the internet that they are wrong.