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As someone else said - maybe you haven't noticed but there's a machine washing your clothes, and there's a good chance it has at least some very basic AI in it.

As someone else said - maybe you haven't noticed but there's a machine washing your clothes, and there's a good chance it has at least some very basic AI in it. It's been quite a while since anyone in the developed world has had to wash clothes by slapping them against a rock while standing in a river. Obviously this is really wishing for domestic robots, not AI, and robots are at least a couple of levels of complexity beyond today's text/image/video GenAI. There were already huge issues with corporatisation of creativity as "content" long before AI arrived. In fact one of our biggest problems is the complete collapse of the public's ability to imagine anything at all outside of corporate content channels. AI can reinforce that. But - ironically - it can also be very good at subverting it.

Qworg 2y ago
The wits in robotics would say we already have domestic robots - we just call them dishwashers and washing machines. Once something becomes good enough to take the job completely, it gets the name and drops "robotic" - that's why we still have robotic vacuums.
- j_bum 2y ago
  Oh that’s an interesting idea. I know I could google it, but I wonder washing machines originally was called an “automatic clothes washer” or something similar before it became widely adopted.
- tshaddox 2y ago
  I think that’s a bit silly. The reason we don’t commonly refer to a dishwasher as a robot isn’t because dishwashers exist and we only use “robot” for things that don’t exist. (This should already be clear given that robots do exist, and we do call them robots, as you yourself noted, but never mind that for now.) It’s not even about the level of mechanical or computational complexity. Automobiles have a lot of mechanical and computational complexity, but also aren’t called robots (ignoring of course self-driving cars).
  - Qworg 2y ago
    What are robots or not is a point of debate - there are many different definitions. Generally, it has to automate a task with some intelligence, so dishwashers qualify. It isn't a existence proof (nor did I state that).
    - tshaddox 2y ago
      I'm more interested in how we regularly use the term, rather than how we might attempt to come up with a rigorous definition (particularly when that rigorous definition conflicts awkwardly with regular usage). My point is simply that we absolutely do not refer to a home dishwasher as a robot. Nor an old thermostat with a bimetallic strip and a mercury switch. Nor even a normal home PC.
- mylittlebrain 2y ago
  Similarly, we already have AI, which is really MI (Machine Intelligence). Long before the current hype cycle the defense industry and others have been using the same tools being applied now. Of course, there are differences, such as scale and architecture, etc.
hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
> As someone else said - maybe you haven't noticed but there's a machine washing your clothes, and there's a good chance it has at least some very basic AI in it. This really seems like an "akshually" argument to me... Nobody is denying that there are dishwashers and washing machines, and that they are big time savers. But is it really a wonder what people are referring to when they say "I want AI to wash my dishes and do my laundry"? That is, I still spend hours doing the dishes and laundry every week, and I have a dishwasher and washing machine. But I still want something to fold my laundry, something that lets me just dump my dishes in the sink and have them come out clean, ideally put away in the cabinets. > Obviously this is really wishing for domestic robots, not AI I don't mean this to be an "every Internet argument is over semantics" example, but literally every company and team I know that's working on autonomous robots refers heavily to them as AI. And there is a fundamental difference between "old school" robotics, i.e robots following procedural instructions, and robots that use AI-based models, e.g https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/gemini-robotics-brings-ai-into-the-physical-world/ https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/gemini-robotics-brings... . I think it's doubly weird that you say that today's washing machines "has at least some very basic AI in it" (I think "very basic" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there...), but don't think AI refers to autonomous robots.
- lannisterstark 2y ago
  > I still spend hours doing the dishes and laundry every week, and I have a dishwasher and washing machine. I don't mean to sound insensitive, but, how? Literal hours?
tshaddox 2y ago
> maybe you haven't noticed but there's a machine washing your clothes Well sure, there’s also a computer recording, storing, and manipulating the songs I record and the books I write. But that’s not what we mean by “AI that composes music and writes books.” This isn’t a quibble about the term “AI.” It’s simply clear from context that we’re talking about full automation of these tasks initiated by nothing more than a short prompt from the human.
GeoAtreides 2y ago
>there's a good chance it has at least some very basic AI in it. lol no, what it has it's a finite state machine, you don't want undefined or new behaviour in user appliances
bdhcuidbebe 2y ago
> there's a machine washing your clothes, and there's a good chance it has at least some very basic AI in it. The term AI clearly has lost all its meaning, so thank you for making it so apparent.

Qworg 2y ago

The wits in robotics would say we already have domestic robots - we just call them dishwashers and washing machines. Once something becomes good enough to take the job completely, it gets the name and drops "robotic" - that's why we still have robotic vacuums.

j_bum 2y ago
Oh that’s an interesting idea. I know I could google it, but I wonder washing machines originally was called an “automatic clothes washer” or something similar before it became widely adopted.
tshaddox 2y ago
I think that’s a bit silly. The reason we don’t commonly refer to a dishwasher as a robot isn’t because dishwashers exist and we only use “robot” for things that don’t exist. (This should already be clear given that robots do exist, and we do call them robots, as you yourself noted, but never mind that for now.) It’s not even about the level of mechanical or computational complexity. Automobiles have a lot of mechanical and computational complexity, but also aren’t called robots (ignoring of course self-driving cars).
- Qworg 2y ago
  What are robots or not is a point of debate - there are many different definitions. Generally, it has to automate a task with some intelligence, so dishwashers qualify. It isn't a existence proof (nor did I state that).
  - tshaddox 2y ago
    I'm more interested in how we regularly use the term, rather than how we might attempt to come up with a rigorous definition (particularly when that rigorous definition conflicts awkwardly with regular usage). My point is simply that we absolutely do not refer to a home dishwasher as a robot. Nor an old thermostat with a bimetallic strip and a mercury switch. Nor even a normal home PC.
mylittlebrain 2y ago
Similarly, we already have AI, which is really MI (Machine Intelligence). Long before the current hype cycle the defense industry and others have been using the same tools being applied now. Of course, there are differences, such as scale and architecture, etc.

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago

> As someone else said - maybe you haven't noticed but there's a machine washing your clothes, and there's a good chance it has at least some very basic AI in it. This really seems like an "akshually" argument to me... Nobody is denying that there are dishwashers and washing machines, and that they are big time savers. But is it really a wonder what people are referring to when they say "I want AI to wash my dishes and do my laundry"? That is, I still spend hours doing the dishes and laundry every week, and I have a dishwasher and washing machine. But I still want something to fold my laundry, something that lets me just dump my dishes in the sink and have them come out clean, ideally put away in the cabinets. > Obviously this is really wishing for domestic robots, not AI I don't mean this to be an "every Internet argument is over semantics" example, but literally every company and team I know that's working on autonomous robots refers heavily to them as AI. And there is a fundamental difference between "old school" robotics, i.e robots following procedural instructions, and robots that use AI-based models, e.g https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/gemini-robotics-brings-ai-into-the-physical-world/ https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/gemini-robotics-brings... . I think it's doubly weird that you say that today's washing machines "has at least some very basic AI in it" (I think "very basic" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there...), but don't think AI refers to autonomous robots.

lannisterstark 2y ago
> I still spend hours doing the dishes and laundry every week, and I have a dishwasher and washing machine. I don't mean to sound insensitive, but, how? Literal hours?

tshaddox 2y ago

> maybe you haven't noticed but there's a machine washing your clothes Well sure, there’s also a computer recording, storing, and manipulating the songs I record and the books I write. But that’s not what we mean by “AI that composes music and writes books.” This isn’t a quibble about the term “AI.” It’s simply clear from context that we’re talking about full automation of these tasks initiated by nothing more than a short prompt from the human.

GeoAtreides 2y ago

>there's a good chance it has at least some very basic AI in it. lol no, what it has it's a finite state machine, you don't want undefined or new behaviour in user appliances

bdhcuidbebe 2y ago

> there's a machine washing your clothes, and there's a good chance it has at least some very basic AI in it. The term AI clearly has lost all its meaning, so thank you for making it so apparent.