Hacker News

AI execs may be too out of touch to build for the general public(techcrunch.com)

89 points by pavel_lishin 1 day ago | 73 comments

There was an interview with Elon a few months back, where he described how the robots will be able to take care of your dog, your kids, or your elderly parents.

The things normal people with healthy relationships want to be doing.

They're so incredibly out of touch.

Edit, found the interview: https://youtu.be/DPCvFy5BKeM?si=3c1yS2kSaOdlW56d&t=238

[–] lurking_swe 1 day ago

> The things normal people with healthy relationships want to be doing.

agree - mostly. Anyone with a young child _and_ aging parents in poor health at the same time can tell you it's hell. Dealing with 1 at a time is a nice "calling" and way of giving back. both is...something i'd wish on my worst enemy lol.

[–] fyredge 1 day ago

To that I disagree. It's not hell that you have to take care both. It's hell when you have to juggle them between a full time job that you need just to survive. Caring for family is a full time job. Unfortunately, it comes with no pay.

[–] vconnor 1 day ago

Caring for a family usually came with help from the community.

Then we decided that nuclear families were the way to go, so we gotta do everything ourselves now, and with both parents working because one breadwinner isn’t enough to live on.

[–] petre 20 hours ago

And the result is no kids.

[–] bigstrat2003 22 hours ago

I certainly agree that the obligations of family can bring serious hardship as well as happiness. But I think that, on balance, most people believe it to be a net positive.

[–] gonzalohm 1 day ago

Then maybe it's best not to have kids no? I don't know why people bring it up like it's mandatory or something Like if you want a robot to take care of your kid you may as well just skip instead of putting your kid through that.

(I'm not saying you specifically, but a lot of people complain all the time about how hard raising a kid is)

[–] werrett 1 day ago

Participating in a democracy, going to school, paying taxes, having a job… Hell, visiting a new country, going camping, climbing a boulder — all of these things involve discomfort and cover a spectrum of ‘mandatory’ to ‘100% chosen’.

‘Complaining’ is part of human discourse. Generally it’s acceptable to share the full range of day-to-day gripes, elation, full tragedies (e.g., deaths), and emotional heights with other humans.

You don’t want to hear constant griping about raising kids. I get that. I might not want to hear griping about national politics or Apple doing something or other. Cest le vie.

Your parents no doubt griped about raising you. You don’t have to have kids but someone has to! We’re going to gripe mate. No one is forcing you to listen.

[–] jdlshore 1 day ago

You’re getting downvoted because having children is a lifelong commitment, and health problems can come on fast. Raising children while dealing with parental health issues isn’t a choice people make, it’s something that life throws at them. Suggesting otherwise is deeply unempathetic.

[–] eluru 1 day ago

Having children should not be something life throws at you, if that ends u happening the bast majority of cases is still your responsability to be there, not to put a clanker in place

[–] gonzalohm 1 day ago

I'm not even referring to that. I'm talking about basic stuff that anyone should research before having a kid like "childcare is too expensive" or "I don't get enough sleep"

I thought that was obvious

[–] fugalfervor 1 day ago

You should say this out loud to the people in your life who have kids!

[–] dana-s 19 hours ago

The people in my life who have kids had them by accident, none were planning for it to actually happen.

[–] camgunz 23 hours ago

You should do some basic research yourself. Childcare is too expensive for almost everyone. Is your idea that only the relatively wealthy should have children? You're not worried about the consequences of a .03 fertility rate?

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/child-care-expenses...

[–] gonzalohm 19 hours ago

I think the solution is to make childcare affordable with government intervention. But that's not going to happen if people keep having kids. There needs to be an actual demographic crisis

[–] stackghost 1 day ago

So, your argument is “don’t have kids because your parents might develop health problems”?

[–] TheOtherHobbes 19 hours ago

The argument is there's not much life training for having kids before you start, and even less for dealing with elderly parents.

So a lot of people are blindsided by the reality of either, and both together can be unimaginably difficult.

Aside from cash and life stability issues - both very real - I suspect that one of the reasons for the drop in birth rates is that because of the Internet, more people are seeing what parenting involves before they start.

Previously it was more of a rosy and aspirational "Let's have kids!", now it's "You mean I'll be severely sleep deprived for years?!"

Robots could help with all of this just by doing basic chores and automating daily bureaucracy.

In the best of all possible worlds that would free up more time for personal relationships, which can get very stressed by unavoidable demands that are basically a full-time job.

[–] s1artibartfast 1 day ago

No one brought up it being mandatory but you

[–] canelonesdeverd 1 day ago

Also, that Sam Altman tweet about how cool it was to generate a podcast of his children interests rather than... talking to them.

[–] lioeters 1 day ago

Or some ad I heard about with Melissa Meyers asking AI to list three best qualities about her child for a school homework because she couldn't think of any. It's sad, and even worse they think showing this to the world would help sell a product.

[–] rolosa 20 hours ago

That's right in TFA as the main point.

[–] lioeters 14 hours ago

You're right, it's the very first paragraph, haha. I stopped reading TechCrush years ago when they put a privacy "consent" modal that cannot be refused - oh, they don't have it anymore, I assume they gave up on consent altogether and still track you though. Her name is spelled Marissa Mayer, and the esteemed publication is TechCrunsh, known for the philanthropic charity event, TechCrush Disturb.

[–] KellyCriterion 15 hours ago

...maybe she was busy A/B testing 43 different blue colors for a submit button?

https://medium.com/@whystudying/multivariate-test-googles-41...

[–] mike_hearn 21 hours ago

But in reality people hire dog walkers, nannies and care homes all the time. What people might want to do isn't always the same as what they can do.

[–] aschla 14 hours ago

Doesn't change the fact that most people would rather do those things themselves, but what makes that difficult? The need to work.

The application of robotics shouldn't be in places where human experience is valued, it should be in places where it isn't, like work.

[–] pluc 19 hours ago

What Elon would do is definitely not what regular people would do. Normal people don't have like 14 kids, this isn't 1830.

[–] tim333 13 hours ago

Nursing homes are a thing. It's not easy taking care of people at the end when they start falling over, needing toilet assistance and the like. Most of my elderly family had professional care at the end and it's an expensive business. I think £5k per week for my Aunt recently (now passed away).

[–] Melatonic 23 hours ago

Or maybe we want the robots to do our jobs so we can spend time with people

[–] 10111001 17 hours ago

> Or maybe we want the robots to do our jobs so we can spend time with people

While scrounging for food from the trash, since we'll all be unemployed and poor.

[–] rdiddly 1 day ago

I agree but I'm starting to think "out of touch" isn't even a harsh enough critique. Out of touch is when you're not aware what's going on in popular culture right now. What do you call it when you don't even know what it is to be human? I think maybe these people are all sad psychopaths.

[–] dgellow 22 hours ago

They are deeply anti-humans.

Human asking for fair treatment and to be respected: no, we will replace you with a machine instead

Eventual AGI asking for fair treatment and to be respected: of course, let me sacrifice a few more humans for your own entertainment my lord

[–] seanmcdirmid 1 day ago

I get the other things being out of touch, but Robot care for the elderly is something people have been looking at for awhile. I for one wouldn’t mind living independently into my 80s rather than being a burden on my only kid. I’m sure lots of people feel similar. Nursing homes and Elder care facilities also have huge labor problems, and throwing just money at the problem isn’t really an option.

[–] fugalfervor 1 day ago

No, lots of people do not feel similar. You may also be out of touch.

[–] seanmcdirmid 1 day ago

Wait, you haven’t been reading the news for the last 3 decades? Chores for sure, but even componaionship has been on the table (Aibo was oriented at that very thing, and that was late 1990s, I think). Or are you just being very American centric?

[–] fugalfervor 16 hours ago

I am saying that people don't want elder care and community automated away. Businesses surely do. The elderly surely do not.

[–] seanmcdirmid 15 hours ago

So you are going for a slippery slope or straw man rather than a spectrum right? Automation is useful is very different from we can lock old people in robot communities (well, to be fair, it’s not very far from how we treat the problem today with nursing homes).

[–] fugalfervor 8 hours ago

Not really. I'm thinking that robots have limited capactiy to help with community, maintaining mental acuity, and strength training which as I understand it are the three most predictive factors in quality-of-life outcomes for the elderly.

I'm not saying that robots can't help care for them, but rather that the proposed uses of robotics are optimizing for problems that are ultimately not the most important problems to those nearing death.

[–] s1artibartfast 1 day ago

Sure they do.

How do you feel about letting your parents use a dishwasher versus doing the dishes for them?

What about letting them see a doctor instead of taking care of all their medical issues yourself?

Obviously the task that is being outsourced matters. Nobody cares if a robot is taking out the trash. If this allows people more time to focus on real interactions, then that's a good thing

[–] fugalfervor 1 day ago

How exactly is building a robot to take out the trash "robot care for the elderly"? Any chore done by humans -- including but not limited to the elderly -- that can be automated by a robot is considered "robot care for the elderly"?

If that is what the above poster meant, they should have stated it more clearly because it did not come through.

[–] s1artibartfast 1 day ago

That is generally what people mean by robot care for the elderly. Doing chores pertaining to the elderly.

Elderly need a lot of help with a lot of things. Maybe it's the trash, maybe it's helping them find their keys or remembering to take their medication.

What did you think they meant? I assume that if someone meant we need robots to provide companionship or emotional support for the elderly, they would say that instead.

[–] camgunz 23 hours ago

They literally mean like, a robot to shower them, wipe their asses, provide companionship, get them in/out of bed, make sure they turn the stove off, make sure they take their meds, alert people if there's a health incident, etc.

[–] ohyes 1 day ago

That is not what anyone means.

A nurse who administers medication, prepares meals, and gets them out of the house and checks on their well being. Full time care for the elderly.

[–] mythrwy 15 hours ago

I'd rather have a robot that I controlled taking care of me than a person I may not care for and don't control.

[–] autoexec 23 hours ago

> I for one wouldn’t mind living independently into my 80s rather than being a burden on my only kid.

You wouldn't be living independently if you were dependent on a robot. The burden shifts from your family only as long as you can pay for and maintain the robot yourself and if that's the case you could probably pay humans to care for you anyway.

> Nursing homes and Elder care facilities also have huge labor problems, and throwing just money at the problem isn’t really an option.

The solution probably involves paying workers a hell of a lot more and breaking up the largest companies.

[–] ButlerianJihad 23 hours ago

> The solution

So it turns out that family members who traditionally cared for their own family would do it based on cultural and religious norms, deep bonds of love and affection, and/or the pressure that comes with knowing nobody else would step up and do it.

It is a fools paradise thinking that you can motivate mercenary caregivers, who are unrelated to their clients, in fact often foreigners, with giant stacks of cash, and expect consistent outcomes.

[–] autoexec 23 hours ago

Healthcare workers for the elderly don't need giant stacks of cash, they just need fair wages they can live on. There is no shortage of extremely compassionate people who don't need to be bribed to care for others in need. They do need to be able to support themselves and thrive though. It makes zero difference if they are foreigners, or unrelated.

Traditionally, communities cared for each other, no matter if someone was their family member or not. The elderly, injured, sick, disabled, and orphaned have been cared for by those outside of their immediate families throughout all of human history. Our modern lives have made us unusually isolated, but it's still our nature to care for each other.

[–] ButlerianJihad 22 hours ago

All that you have written is true. In fact, it is so true that a brief survey of church history bears it out. The caregivers in times past: those who founded universities, infirmaries, hospitals, and clinics, were members of religious orders. Often consecrated female religious sisters. And they never required giant stacks of cash, because they were already under vows. Of course, their room and board, and all expenses were always covered by their religious institute. In fact, consecrated religious are members of a true family, and held together by true bonds of love. It is simply an adoptive family to which they belong.

Therefore, these faithful women and men have cared for strangers and foreigners because of cultural norms, because of religious obligation (for which they freely volunteered) and from a selfless faith in God's love and salvation. It is this Gospel which they sought to spread by means of good works and prayer.

So basically, today those extremely compassionate and loyal people are being recruited as mercenaries. Not to renounce the world, not to take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, but simply to snag their certifications, bona fides and licenses for a paycheck. Ultimately, they are recapitulating the process by which religious orders formed up and were sent on mission.

Sadly, this mercenary, paycheck-to-paycheck model is not as cohesive or attractive as the religious life was in times past. You can have extremely compassionate people who are utterly burned out, and you can also have mercenaries who are not compassionate at all but just in it for the bucks, and they exhibit open contempt for their charges. And yet, these women and men still need to fend for themselves at home, and cover their own expenses, and feed themselves under a bare lightbulb at a kitchen table with 3 empty chairs. This is the true source of the "housing crisis", by the way, that women and men move out at 18, and they are all living alone and separately, and occupying small spaces, constantly at risk of eviction or displacement.

The women swallowed hook, line and sinker a story of girlboss domination, and smashing the patriarchy along with the glass ceiling, but ultimately they wind up as wage slaves, childless and free of any marital entanglements, and their employer has no more obligation to them beyond a 2-weeks notice, severance pay, and COBRA.

[–] autoexec 12 hours ago

> In fact, it is so true that a brief survey of church history bears it out.

You could have searched much farther back and found the same thing. Communities have helped each other's needy long before Christianity and did not depend on religious obligation. Organized religions often provided a lot of funding and record keeping which certainly increased viability in historical record, but the practice existed both prior to and along side the larger religious institutions. It's believed that even proto-humans likely supported others outside of their own families as well, and the behavior has even been seen in other primates like chimpanzees, bonobos, and macaques.

> You can have extremely compassionate people who are utterly burned out

Requiring care facilities to adequately staff and making sure employees are well paid would go a long way to prevent employee burn out.

> you can also have mercenaries who are not compassionate at all but just in it for the bucks

There are people who take these jobs because they need a paycheck, but nobody is doing it because they expect to make a lot of money. It's extremely demanding yet low paying work, which means people who are just "in it for the bucks" will look for higher paying jobs that are much easier.

That said, corporate greed prioritizes driving down wages, providing low standards of care, and spending as little as possible on oversight to ensure that people are being properly cared for. That means that caring and compassionate people can be forced to leave to look for higher paying work. Many of the people who keep those jobs are there out of desperation. Stronger requirements for care facilities and higher pay for employees will allow care facilities to attract and retain people who are there for the right reasons, and efficiently remove employees who don't provide a high standard of care regardless of their personal motivations.

[–] throwdat98734 5 hours ago

>> ultimately they wind up as wage slaves, childless and free of any marital entanglements, and their employer has no more obligation to them beyond a 2-weeks notice, severance pay, and COBRA

Whoa that happened to me too but I'm a dude, wtf? If only someone had forced me to join a monestary and work for free. :*(

[–] expedition32 20 hours ago

This is what happens when wealth becomes generational.

Say what you want about the railway barons of the 19th century they all started out with nothing and knew the streets- because they came from them. This is what set America apart from Europe. The old "paperboy becomes millionaire" story.

But we're going back to aristocrats.

[–] ohyes 1 day ago

I find it really funny that Zuck bemoans people not having real friendships and is also partially responsible for people not having real friendships and that his solution is to be friends with something that isn’t real.

It all totally tracks given what he’s made his career monetizing but god is it depressing.

[–] keiferski 22 hours ago

I grew up in a place with a lot of remnants from the 19th century industrialists (Pittsburgh) which includes a lot of parks, museums, industrial architecture, etc.

One thing that’s always been apparent to me is how the rich of that era mostly attempted to be perceived well by society at large, and they tried to be accepted by the upper classes culturally. For example, Carnegie Hall and the hundreds of Carnegie Libraries around the world. You can debate whether this absolved them of their various sins, but I think it is pretty clear that they wanted society to think well of them.

Compare that to today’s tech and finance billionaires, and it seems like they are actively trying to destroy cultural society and/or want to remake it in the image of a corporate dystopia. Very different types of people.

[–] kranke155 20 hours ago

Its plausible those acts of generosity were in fact a response to the same kind of criticism at a time, just a generation before Carnegie and others.

[–] AlAjem 19 hours ago

Most definitely, we have a seen a version of this within our lifetimes through the history of Gates foundation laundering Bill Gates's public image from a historic lows in the 90's to being seen as a "redeemed" counterpart to the new generation of tech billionaires right up until his divorce cracked his public image he spent 20 years building.

[–] keiferski 19 hours ago

A lot of those acts were definitely in response to criticism, but I think in general the billionaires of the time cared more about their public image and in contributing to society. The whole idea of Silicon Valley rebels didn’t really exist.

[–] realityfactchex 1 day ago

If:

- you (GROUP 1) are the 0.001%,

and you

- hire the 0.030% (30x more unclean than GROUP 1 on some scale),

- build for the 1.000% (33.3% more unclean than GROUP 2 and 1000x more unclean than GROUP 1 on some scale),

then I could see how

- "building for the 1%" would actually feel like building for the general public.

[–] hoppp 1 day ago

These are the use-cases of AI that I don't like that much.

[–] rossy 1 day ago

I think you'll always have a bit of cognitive dissonance unless you take this feeling to its logical conclusion. Almost all advertised use-cases of AI are designed to replace a relationship to a human being with a relationship to a multi-national mega-corporation.

Maybe replacing the relationship between a parent and child has more emotional significance, but all your human relationships are valuable. Even AI for coding wants you to spend more money on tokens and less on hiring and training junior developers in your local area. You can say goodbye to your local tech scene, and eventually your local university's engineering department, and all the social benefits they brought to your local area. Even walking over to your colleague's desk to ask them how their code works is something that is gone now.

[–] fugalfervor 1 day ago

I've never thought of it like that, but I can't think of a counterexample.

[–] hoppp 19 hours ago

I agree with the points, maybe in my example I would not have money to hire people and used to write code myself, so I replaced myself with claude and not an employee. So the human to replace was myself and interaction was not lost as I still talk to myself :p

[–] DonHopkins 1 day ago

"The Lady": Russ Hanneman's Child Automation System:

https://youtu.be/wGy5SGTuAGI?t=217

[–] badlucklottery 1 day ago

You'd think the amount of awkward "how do you do, fellow humans?" moments from tech execs when they do interviews or podcasts would deter them but nope.

It shows how thoroughly they've built their echo chambers.

[–] xyzsparetimexyz 1 day ago

These people are so absolutely moronic

[–] 0x20cowboy 1 day ago

Yet somehow are the richest people on the planet.

[–] autoexec 23 hours ago

You can be stupid as fuck and still be insanely rich. It really helps if your daddy was rich and you have no morals tho.

[–] inamorty 1 day ago

Greed is not something to admire

[–] ee3aa 1 day ago

Steve Jobs kept the bozos in check.

[–] rolosa 19 hours ago

He would have built a psychopathic alternative medicine AI, considering that's how he died.

[–] paxy 19 hours ago

Ah yes, the billionaire who bought a new car every 6 months because he didn’t want number plates was truly a champion of the working class.

[–] ee3aa 10 hours ago

Much of the working class in the west use his products. Wind your neck in - bozo.