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>>Robot butlers This is actually pretty cool. The butler part makes it sound silly but if you were able to pull it off it would mean that we have reached a tec

>>Robot butlers This is actually pretty cool. The butler part makes it sound silly but if you were able to pull it off it would mean that we have reached a technological breakthrough. It would be very close to a technological singularity.

Baeocystin 8y ago
Speaking as someone who was the caregiver for both my parents as they aged, good lord would it have been wonderful if I could have been able to offload some of those tasks to a 'bot while I enjoyed the remaining time I had with my folks.
- riffraff 8y ago
  forgive me for asking, but why not hire a caretaker/nurse?
  - mac01021 8y ago
    Those are expensive. And their presence compromises your family's privacy.
    - Baeocystin 8y ago
      Exactly. We were already hemorrhaging money, and skilled nursing care for even a few hours a week is incredibly expensive. Not to mention you now have a stranger in your home, and without going in to details, we caught some very unsavory behavior via IP Camera with one of the caregivers we'd hired early on. It's just an incredibly stressful time in a family's life, no matter how you cut it.
      - javajosh 8y ago
        Robot butler != skilled nursing care, though.
        ctvo 8y ago
        Who made the claim otherwise? A butler to handle taking out the trash, cleaning the house, cleaning after your parents while you did the other tasks is already s big help.
    - feanaro 8y ago
      I'm afraid having Google's robot butlers around all the time wouldn't do wonders for privacy either.
      - piyush_soni 8y ago
        Better than an actual person though, at least for now.
        feanaro 8y ago
        Is it? The privacy effects of a person are fairly localised, while the effects of having a spying, data collection machine are potentially unbounded.
      - mac01021 8y ago
        Are we saying Google's robot butlers won't work without an internet connection? That would severely diminish their value.
        feanaro 8y ago
        Knowing Google, they probably will work, for some definition of work. However, you'll get a lot of extremely convenient online-only features around which an ecosystem will be built, such that ever more people start turning it on and it stops being controversial. They'll also instruct you to connect them to the internet during the initial setup procedure. At first they'll promise they won't collect a lot of data and you'll always be able to opt out. However, increasingly more data will start getting collected, you'll start having a hard time finding the option to opt out and even if you manage to do it, the UI will progressively get more deceptive and annoying at trying to get you to turn it back on. Next thing you know, almost everyone has them connected, you're a weirdo if you don't and Google is even more powerful than before.

Baeocystin 8y ago

Speaking as someone who was the caregiver for both my parents as they aged, good lord would it have been wonderful if I could have been able to offload some of those tasks to a 'bot while I enjoyed the remaining time I had with my folks.

riffraff 8y ago
forgive me for asking, but why not hire a caretaker/nurse?
- mac01021 8y ago
  Those are expensive. And their presence compromises your family's privacy.
  - Baeocystin 8y ago
    Exactly. We were already hemorrhaging money, and skilled nursing care for even a few hours a week is incredibly expensive. Not to mention you now have a stranger in your home, and without going in to details, we caught some very unsavory behavior via IP Camera with one of the caregivers we'd hired early on. It's just an incredibly stressful time in a family's life, no matter how you cut it.
    - javajosh 8y ago
      Robot butler != skilled nursing care, though.
      - ctvo 8y ago
        Who made the claim otherwise? A butler to handle taking out the trash, cleaning the house, cleaning after your parents while you did the other tasks is already s big help.
  - feanaro 8y ago
    I'm afraid having Google's robot butlers around all the time wouldn't do wonders for privacy either.
    - piyush_soni 8y ago
      Better than an actual person though, at least for now.
      - feanaro 8y ago
        Is it? The privacy effects of a person are fairly localised, while the effects of having a spying, data collection machine are potentially unbounded.
    - mac01021 8y ago
      Are we saying Google's robot butlers won't work without an internet connection? That would severely diminish their value.
      - feanaro 8y ago
        Knowing Google, they probably will work, for some definition of work. However, you'll get a lot of extremely convenient online-only features around which an ecosystem will be built, such that ever more people start turning it on and it stops being controversial. They'll also instruct you to connect them to the internet during the initial setup procedure. At first they'll promise they won't collect a lot of data and you'll always be able to opt out. However, increasingly more data will start getting collected, you'll start having a hard time finding the option to opt out and even if you manage to do it, the UI will progressively get more deceptive and annoying at trying to get you to turn it back on. Next thing you know, almost everyone has them connected, you're a weirdo if you don't and Google is even more powerful than before.