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True, but imagine a decade or so down the line where well-off families could purchase a general purpose robot butler for $20k (Elon Musk's target price for the

True, but imagine a decade or so down the line where well-off families could purchase a general purpose robot butler for $20k (Elon Musk's target price for the Tesla Bot) or $30k (about the price of a Honda Civic) - why wouldn't you? Some chores it could do for you: * Taking the kids to school * Preparing a meal plan for the coming week and getting the groceries from the store * Making dinner * Setting the table * Clearing the table + doing the dishes * General tidying up after humans throughout the day * Dealing with washing and drying my laundry * Folding and putting away my laundry * Collecting my wedding suit from the dry cleaners

JohnFen 3y ago
I suppose people might want that sort of thing as a display of wealth, but it still appears to me that all of those tasks would be performed better by special-purpose robots instead. I can think of a lot of better uses for that $20-$30k, even if that's a tiny fraction of my disposable wealth. But I don't know. Wealthy people often do things with their money that appear to be crazy to me.
lacrimacida 3y ago
You forgot spying on you, changes in behavior after updates and having corporate ears and eyes in your household. I think robots will make a lot more inroads into industrial settings (already did), humans prefer other humans around their families. Same thing with resturants, people prefer to be served by other people
- kthartic 3y ago
  > You forgot spying on you, changes in behavior after updates and having corporate ears and eyes in your household That's already a possibility with your existing devices, yet everyone seems to have adopted them en masse. I agree we should be careful, but a large % of consumers will forget or deprioritize privacy concerns over convenience. See self-driving cars that have a zillion cameras inside & out, smart phones (an endless list of physical sensors and software analytics), smart speakers with microphones, laptops with webcams, online stores that track your habits, etc.

JohnFen 3y ago

I suppose people might want that sort of thing as a display of wealth, but it still appears to me that all of those tasks would be performed better by special-purpose robots instead. I can think of a lot of better uses for that $20-$30k, even if that's a tiny fraction of my disposable wealth. But I don't know. Wealthy people often do things with their money that appear to be crazy to me.

lacrimacida 3y ago

You forgot spying on you, changes in behavior after updates and having corporate ears and eyes in your household. I think robots will make a lot more inroads into industrial settings (already did), humans prefer other humans around their families. Same thing with resturants, people prefer to be served by other people

kthartic 3y ago
> You forgot spying on you, changes in behavior after updates and having corporate ears and eyes in your household That's already a possibility with your existing devices, yet everyone seems to have adopted them en masse. I agree we should be careful, but a large % of consumers will forget or deprioritize privacy concerns over convenience. See self-driving cars that have a zillion cameras inside & out, smart phones (an endless list of physical sensors and software analytics), smart speakers with microphones, laptops with webcams, online stores that track your habits, etc.