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I initially thought this, but the technology from competitors like Roborock (I have the S7 maxV) gives me pause: their more modern vacuums not only recognize fu

I initially thought this, but the technology from competitors like Roborock (I have the S7 maxV) gives me pause: their more modern vacuums not only recognize furniture and layouts, including the chair layout, couch type etc... but they also detect and categorize specific objects you have lying around (it can distinguish shoes, animals, cables, power strips, blankets)... that data seems pretty useful alongside ambient information like temperature inside the house to me. Yes, it's possible to disable these features–but the robot is less useful without them, and it seems unlikely the average user would understand the implication. If you can figure out what type of shoes[1] someone owns or that they have kids/a dog based on all the toys lying around, there's plenty of ad/behavioral data for free basically. (I love the Roborock vacuum I have, and would find it hard to give it up even if Amazon acquired them too–it's really good. Thankfully, they have a good privacy focus right now and do state that these features don't share information with the company/stays local to the robot right now). [1] https://twitter.com/ow/status/1555588525982363648 https://twitter.com/ow/status/1555588525982363648

rgrieselhuber 4y ago
It’s Alexa with wheels.
saimiam 4y ago
Jeez, so Black Mirror-ish.
EForEndeavour 4y ago
This is not a new observation, but damn, imagine how much engineering talent and human effort in general is devoted to the end goal of selling more shit.
- westpfelia 4y ago
  Its really depressing. Could be working towards solving real world problems. But hey. Capitalism has got to get its pound of flesh.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- ch4s3 4y ago
  Well, people want those things. Is there something inherently wrong with that, or do you just find it aesthetically displeasing? To me, this is a bit like complaining that so much talent in painting in the Renaissance went into religious art.
  - BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
    A lot of intrusive and weird functionality comes bundled with products that consumers would not ask for individually. I can easily see someone wanting to by a little vacuum cleaner robot to keep the floors clean while at work - without realizing it has the ability to determine what kind of couch it is bumping into and relaying that information to some server somewhere.
    - ch4s3 4y ago
      Well sure, once you have a little computer and suite of sensors on the thing there are a lot of incentives to add crap onto it because the marginal costs are so low. Imagine you a PM or mid level exec at Robot Vacuums Inc and you want to advance your career and get a nice bonus. If you can push to get some cool sounding new feature onto the new model you might get promoted or a nice bonus. It probably won't improve sales and the customers don't want that feature but it doesn't hurt sales either so its easy to see how these things prliferate.
  - alephxyz 4y ago
    A lot of those wants wouldn't exist without advertising
    - ch4s3 4y ago
      That's sort of a warmed over marxist critique. It gets presented at lot as fact without any real evidence and I find that hard to believe. As someone who works adjacent to advertising, it just doesn't seem all that effective. Most ads are basically just informational or reminders that a thing exists anyway. There are a lot of different products because in advanced economies people have a lot of disposable income and credit is cheap. As such, consumer good proliferate.
- godelski 4y ago
  I think there's a little more nuance to this. In the engineer's head these things (dogs, shoes, etc) are technical challenges to overcome. It is part of the puzzle that drives engineers. I don't think they're thinking much about how this data can be used to sell more shit and spy on more people (plenty do, but you'll see even here on HN there's plenty of people saying it is "useless" data). So it isn't hard for a PM to say "Hey, can we record that data so we can improve our models" and then a marketer be like "Hey, if we're collecting this data, can we use it to sell more shit?" It isn't a new observation (same way you get engineers to build weapons), but I'm laying it out more because I think it encourages engineers building stuff to understand how the data they are collecting to solve problems can also be abused (or how whatever you are making can be abused). Like another commenter said, you can turn off the features but they are less useful. Data is a double edged sword.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  Well selling shit is what pays salaries. It's the entire reason the job to exists in the first place.
treis 4y ago
>If you can figure out what type of shoes[1] someone owns or that they have kids/a dog based on all the toys lying around, there's plenty of ad/behavioral data for free basically. If you could actually do something useful with it people would give you the info. Like if you could provide shoe recommendations useful to someone they'd take 20 minutes and take pictures of all the shoes they have. But the state of the art is basically "I see you have brown shoes. Here's 1,000 random brown shoes".

rgrieselhuber 4y ago

It’s Alexa with wheels.

saimiam 4y ago

Jeez, so Black Mirror-ish.

EForEndeavour 4y ago

This is not a new observation, but damn, imagine how much engineering talent and human effort in general is devoted to the end goal of selling more shit.

westpfelia 4y ago
Its really depressing. Could be working towards solving real world problems. But hey. Capitalism has got to get its pound of flesh.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
ch4s3 4y ago
Well, people want those things. Is there something inherently wrong with that, or do you just find it aesthetically displeasing? To me, this is a bit like complaining that so much talent in painting in the Renaissance went into religious art.
- BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
  A lot of intrusive and weird functionality comes bundled with products that consumers would not ask for individually. I can easily see someone wanting to by a little vacuum cleaner robot to keep the floors clean while at work - without realizing it has the ability to determine what kind of couch it is bumping into and relaying that information to some server somewhere.
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    Well sure, once you have a little computer and suite of sensors on the thing there are a lot of incentives to add crap onto it because the marginal costs are so low. Imagine you a PM or mid level exec at Robot Vacuums Inc and you want to advance your career and get a nice bonus. If you can push to get some cool sounding new feature onto the new model you might get promoted or a nice bonus. It probably won't improve sales and the customers don't want that feature but it doesn't hurt sales either so its easy to see how these things prliferate.
- alephxyz 4y ago
  A lot of those wants wouldn't exist without advertising
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    That's sort of a warmed over marxist critique. It gets presented at lot as fact without any real evidence and I find that hard to believe. As someone who works adjacent to advertising, it just doesn't seem all that effective. Most ads are basically just informational or reminders that a thing exists anyway. There are a lot of different products because in advanced economies people have a lot of disposable income and credit is cheap. As such, consumer good proliferate.
godelski 4y ago
I think there's a little more nuance to this. In the engineer's head these things (dogs, shoes, etc) are technical challenges to overcome. It is part of the puzzle that drives engineers. I don't think they're thinking much about how this data can be used to sell more shit and spy on more people (plenty do, but you'll see even here on HN there's plenty of people saying it is "useless" data). So it isn't hard for a PM to say "Hey, can we record that data so we can improve our models" and then a marketer be like "Hey, if we're collecting this data, can we use it to sell more shit?" It isn't a new observation (same way you get engineers to build weapons), but I'm laying it out more because I think it encourages engineers building stuff to understand how the data they are collecting to solve problems can also be abused (or how whatever you are making can be abused). Like another commenter said, you can turn off the features but they are less useful. Data is a double edged sword.
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
Well selling shit is what pays salaries. It's the entire reason the job to exists in the first place.

treis 4y ago

>If you can figure out what type of shoes[1] someone owns or that they have kids/a dog based on all the toys lying around, there's plenty of ad/behavioral data for free basically. If you could actually do something useful with it people would give you the info. Like if you could provide shoe recommendations useful to someone they'd take 20 minutes and take pictures of all the shoes they have. But the state of the art is basically "I see you have brown shoes. Here's 1,000 random brown shoes".