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You can tell the people pioneering this are utterly miserable and soulless. "Let's build something to automate all the parts of your life that are actually your

You can tell the people pioneering this are utterly miserable and soulless. "Let's build something to automate all the parts of your life that are actually your life." What person that was even mildly satisfied with living their life would want this? What's next, agents that play video games and watch tv for me? What's the point?

interstice 2mo ago
Freedom to decide? Not that humanity is historically great at deciding what brings itself happiness.
- Insanity 2mo ago
  Humanity or humans? Individual humans could, but as a collective we make stupid choices.
  - estearum 2mo ago
    Humans are quite bad at doing what brings them (durable) happiness
  - chrisjj 2mo ago
    As a collective we make no choices.
heaney-555 2mo ago
People said this about every new convenience, such as email over physical mail, buying things online instead of in stores, etc. It's a tired argument.
- estearum 2mo ago
  It seems quite clear at this point that important parts of our social and economic fabric are in fact damaged by people buying everything online, ordering food delivery, drive-through windows, streaming movies, and so on
  - BeetleB 2mo ago
    > ordering food delivery, Before Grubhub, did you feel that way about pizza delivery? > are in fact damaged by people buying everything online You enjoyed ordering from mail order catalogs? Reality check: Before online shopping became a thing, the vast majority of towns in the US did not have a store that had everything you wanted to buy. You had to find a potential dealer in town, get them to order it for you, and pay a premium for that service. I lived for a number of years in a town that had no FedEx or UPS office. So if you missed a delivery that required a signature, you'd have to drive to the town that did - a 45 minute drive (and in winter, a risky drive if there was snow). I didn't have a car, so I had to make sure I'm there for 3-4 hours or longer awaiting delivery. If I missed it (I never did), it simply meant the product would get returned, and I'd pay the vendor some kind of fee (restocking, shipping, whatever). It's only the convenience of the Internet that solved some of these problems. Are there downsides to everything you mentioned? Sure. There are upsides to all of them as well. You're taking a multifaceted concept and reducing it down, not even to a continuum, but to a binary.
    - estearum 2mo ago
      I too can't detect the meaningful qualitative differences that might emerge from changes in prevalence or intensity of a given behavior. Next up: Oh drinking alcohol is an enjoyable social activity? Well tell that to my uncle who drank 4 liters of vodka and DIED. I made no such binary distinction, not sure what you're accusing me of. I am in fact making the same argument you are: there are pros and cons. This was made in rebuttal to the prior comment, which suggested that the people who said "there are cons" or even "there may be cons" have been consistently proven wrong.
      - cadamsdotcom 2mo ago
        Your last paragraph is a valid rebuttal. And I've done what you did in the first 3. But your first 3 paragraphs serve no one but you. My suggestion for your future, if you'll consider it, is to write those first 3 paragraphs (they feel good to write!), but next, take a deep breath and delete them. I agree with your point by the way - everything has pros and cons - and there're tipping points. "Too much of a good thing" is true of so much in life.
- apsurd 2mo ago
  but why is it a tired argument? You'd clearly never believe this but there's even an argument that cars are of dubious benefit to society. Personal/passenger cars mostly in that they've reshaped our entire civilized landscape to be inhumane and all the long-term and downstream health effects that that entails.
hlynurd 2mo ago
Thanks to people pioneering this I can spend a lot more time on the things I want.
- JohnMakin 2mo ago
  " It plans his daughter’s recipes and orders the ingredients."
  - hlynurd 2mo ago
    Believe or not people pay for others to do this for themselves.
    - alpha_squared 2mo ago
      I think OPs question still applies. > What person that was even mildly satisfied with living their life would want this?
      - BeetleB 2mo ago
        And the person you are replying to answered it. Many, many people outsource things like meal prep.
        JohnMakin 2mo ago
        Many, many people have crappy relationships with their daughters. Put yourself in the pov of the daughter - “daddy thinks this isn’t worth his time but the ai says i’ll like it and i do” and the dad that wakes his kid up early to give them a special breakfast he spent time and energy on perfecting for the impossible child diet. You think the former is outsourcable and preferable to the latter? I could make terrible judgments on you I won’t post because they’re cheap, or maybe you’re childless and young and have a cynical view of the world, but holy crap, in the context of this broader convo, and site, is a real “wtf” moment I can’t really do anything but digest in real time.
IncreasePosts 2mo ago
What scenarios are you imagining where people are automating away the interesting parts of their life ? Searching for a new movie to watch can be fun in itself, but it ight not be want I want to do at any specific point in time. So what's so bad about having a system offer me a recommendation?
- JohnMakin 2mo ago
  A use case provided in this very article is "plans daughter's recipes and orders the ingredients." The whole act of doing that without automating it is what makes it meaningful. What a miserable mindset.
  - deadbunny 2mo ago
    Pretty sure the cooking and spending time with their daughter is the meaningful bit for them. Why would they automate the setup steps otherwise?
  - siriusastrebe 2mo ago
    Next you can ask the AI how to teach the kid how to get recipes from AI. A real time saver for both of you. After that, ask the AI what kind of life lessons are good to impart on your kid.
  - qsera 2mo ago
    The trick is to convince young people that it is a good idea before they get a chance to learn that they are literally trading off parts of their life away...
  - bronco21016 2mo ago
    Isn't it a bit of a spectrum of ways to tackle this depending on tons of other factors? For example, baking cookies with my 3 year old means having them help with a couple steps of mixing before interest is lost until the cookies are done. The whole act of planning, shopping, and prepping the kitchen is mostly entirely left out. Now with my 8 year old, the entire "workflow" of "lets bake cookies" to cookies complete is easily done end to end with the child. My point is the level of "automation" desired for various repetitive tasks in life ebbs and flows on a multitude of external factors. This week I might have a lot going on and don't want to deal with grocery shopping and next week I might be free to go take care of that myself, and find joy in browsing the produce section. Provided "agents" like these can have interactions where the principle still has agency over which tasks they will or will not do, I don't really see the issues. Now the whole idea of negotiating this on a day by day basis with the agent and managing said agent sounds like a chore in and of itself and so I'm not sure if it's worth it or not.
dfee 2mo ago
i have and continue to build a ton of automations against my life. my goal is to offload more and more of my "life" to it. - bills? bookkeeping? reading DMARC emails? yeah, i want to do none of it, but i desperately want these chores done. - spend time with kids? study interesting topics? eat and drink interesting things? i want more of this.
- apsurd 2mo ago
  life is what happens during all the waiting for life to happen.
  - exe34 2mo ago
    That's a nice thought terminating cliché. We get to choose what we want to spend time on and what we would prefer to offload. I'm sure you don't grow your own potatoes.
    - sifar 2mo ago
      >> I'm sure you don't grow your own potatoes. That, is also a thought terminating cliche. Sure we want to choose what we spend time on, however, we don't know what experiences will meaningfully contribute to our lives. It is only after we have gone through them that we realize which ones were significant. And these vary for everyone.
      - exe34 2mo ago
        Isn't it great when we get to try something instead of having to try it?
        apsurd 2mo ago
        umm, its like the hallmark of adulthood to learn that life is a lot about doing things you don't want to do. There's obviously a spectrum. And I don't mean forcibly through coercion. I mean yeah it sucks to wake up early and clean up and get your exercise in and be accountable to your team or take your kid to basketball practice or feed the cat. Or go out your way to pick up that trash someone else threw out, or let someone go ahead of you in traffic even though you were there first or take the stairs because someone is moving in today and needs the elevator more than you or take your dad to dialysis and listen to him mention the same things 5 times, there and back or not just eat anything you want whenever you want. I don't know it sounds like you're advocating for doing only things you want to do. Automate everything else. It's all philosophy at this point. Life doesn't really work that way "and it shouldn't" - where shouldn't is wholly in the philosophy category, of course.

interstice 2mo ago

Freedom to decide? Not that humanity is historically great at deciding what brings itself happiness.

Insanity 2mo ago
Humanity or humans? Individual humans could, but as a collective we make stupid choices.
- estearum 2mo ago
  Humans are quite bad at doing what brings them (durable) happiness
- chrisjj 2mo ago
  As a collective we make no choices.

heaney-555 2mo ago

People said this about every new convenience, such as email over physical mail, buying things online instead of in stores, etc. It's a tired argument.

estearum 2mo ago
It seems quite clear at this point that important parts of our social and economic fabric are in fact damaged by people buying everything online, ordering food delivery, drive-through windows, streaming movies, and so on
- BeetleB 2mo ago
  > ordering food delivery, Before Grubhub, did you feel that way about pizza delivery? > are in fact damaged by people buying everything online You enjoyed ordering from mail order catalogs? Reality check: Before online shopping became a thing, the vast majority of towns in the US did not have a store that had everything you wanted to buy. You had to find a potential dealer in town, get them to order it for you, and pay a premium for that service. I lived for a number of years in a town that had no FedEx or UPS office. So if you missed a delivery that required a signature, you'd have to drive to the town that did - a 45 minute drive (and in winter, a risky drive if there was snow). I didn't have a car, so I had to make sure I'm there for 3-4 hours or longer awaiting delivery. If I missed it (I never did), it simply meant the product would get returned, and I'd pay the vendor some kind of fee (restocking, shipping, whatever). It's only the convenience of the Internet that solved some of these problems. Are there downsides to everything you mentioned? Sure. There are upsides to all of them as well. You're taking a multifaceted concept and reducing it down, not even to a continuum, but to a binary.
  - estearum 2mo ago
    I too can't detect the meaningful qualitative differences that might emerge from changes in prevalence or intensity of a given behavior. Next up: Oh drinking alcohol is an enjoyable social activity? Well tell that to my uncle who drank 4 liters of vodka and DIED. I made no such binary distinction, not sure what you're accusing me of. I am in fact making the same argument you are: there are pros and cons. This was made in rebuttal to the prior comment, which suggested that the people who said "there are cons" or even "there may be cons" have been consistently proven wrong.
    - cadamsdotcom 2mo ago
      Your last paragraph is a valid rebuttal. And I've done what you did in the first 3. But your first 3 paragraphs serve no one but you. My suggestion for your future, if you'll consider it, is to write those first 3 paragraphs (they feel good to write!), but next, take a deep breath and delete them. I agree with your point by the way - everything has pros and cons - and there're tipping points. "Too much of a good thing" is true of so much in life.
apsurd 2mo ago
but why is it a tired argument? You'd clearly never believe this but there's even an argument that cars are of dubious benefit to society. Personal/passenger cars mostly in that they've reshaped our entire civilized landscape to be inhumane and all the long-term and downstream health effects that that entails.

hlynurd 2mo ago

Thanks to people pioneering this I can spend a lot more time on the things I want.

JohnMakin 2mo ago
" It plans his daughter’s recipes and orders the ingredients."
- hlynurd 2mo ago
  Believe or not people pay for others to do this for themselves.
  - alpha_squared 2mo ago
    I think OPs question still applies. > What person that was even mildly satisfied with living their life would want this?
    - BeetleB 2mo ago
      And the person you are replying to answered it. Many, many people outsource things like meal prep.
      - JohnMakin 2mo ago
        Many, many people have crappy relationships with their daughters. Put yourself in the pov of the daughter - “daddy thinks this isn’t worth his time but the ai says i’ll like it and i do” and the dad that wakes his kid up early to give them a special breakfast he spent time and energy on perfecting for the impossible child diet. You think the former is outsourcable and preferable to the latter? I could make terrible judgments on you I won’t post because they’re cheap, or maybe you’re childless and young and have a cynical view of the world, but holy crap, in the context of this broader convo, and site, is a real “wtf” moment I can’t really do anything but digest in real time.

IncreasePosts 2mo ago

What scenarios are you imagining where people are automating away the interesting parts of their life ? Searching for a new movie to watch can be fun in itself, but it ight not be want I want to do at any specific point in time. So what's so bad about having a system offer me a recommendation?

JohnMakin 2mo ago
A use case provided in this very article is "plans daughter's recipes and orders the ingredients." The whole act of doing that without automating it is what makes it meaningful. What a miserable mindset.
- deadbunny 2mo ago
  Pretty sure the cooking and spending time with their daughter is the meaningful bit for them. Why would they automate the setup steps otherwise?
- siriusastrebe 2mo ago
  Next you can ask the AI how to teach the kid how to get recipes from AI. A real time saver for both of you. After that, ask the AI what kind of life lessons are good to impart on your kid.
- qsera 2mo ago
  The trick is to convince young people that it is a good idea before they get a chance to learn that they are literally trading off parts of their life away...
- bronco21016 2mo ago
  Isn't it a bit of a spectrum of ways to tackle this depending on tons of other factors? For example, baking cookies with my 3 year old means having them help with a couple steps of mixing before interest is lost until the cookies are done. The whole act of planning, shopping, and prepping the kitchen is mostly entirely left out. Now with my 8 year old, the entire "workflow" of "lets bake cookies" to cookies complete is easily done end to end with the child. My point is the level of "automation" desired for various repetitive tasks in life ebbs and flows on a multitude of external factors. This week I might have a lot going on and don't want to deal with grocery shopping and next week I might be free to go take care of that myself, and find joy in browsing the produce section. Provided "agents" like these can have interactions where the principle still has agency over which tasks they will or will not do, I don't really see the issues. Now the whole idea of negotiating this on a day by day basis with the agent and managing said agent sounds like a chore in and of itself and so I'm not sure if it's worth it or not.

dfee 2mo ago

i have and continue to build a ton of automations against my life. my goal is to offload more and more of my "life" to it. - bills? bookkeeping? reading DMARC emails? yeah, i want to do none of it, but i desperately want these chores done. - spend time with kids? study interesting topics? eat and drink interesting things? i want more of this.

apsurd 2mo ago
life is what happens during all the waiting for life to happen.
- exe34 2mo ago
  That's a nice thought terminating cliché. We get to choose what we want to spend time on and what we would prefer to offload. I'm sure you don't grow your own potatoes.
  - sifar 2mo ago
    >> I'm sure you don't grow your own potatoes. That, is also a thought terminating cliche. Sure we want to choose what we spend time on, however, we don't know what experiences will meaningfully contribute to our lives. It is only after we have gone through them that we realize which ones were significant. And these vary for everyone.
    - exe34 2mo ago
      Isn't it great when we get to try something instead of having to try it?
      - apsurd 2mo ago
        umm, its like the hallmark of adulthood to learn that life is a lot about doing things you don't want to do. There's obviously a spectrum. And I don't mean forcibly through coercion. I mean yeah it sucks to wake up early and clean up and get your exercise in and be accountable to your team or take your kid to basketball practice or feed the cat. Or go out your way to pick up that trash someone else threw out, or let someone go ahead of you in traffic even though you were there first or take the stairs because someone is moving in today and needs the elevator more than you or take your dad to dialysis and listen to him mention the same things 5 times, there and back or not just eat anything you want whenever you want. I don't know it sounds like you're advocating for doing only things you want to do. Automate everything else. It's all philosophy at this point. Life doesn't really work that way "and it shouldn't" - where shouldn't is wholly in the philosophy category, of course.