DE version is available. Content is displayed in original English for accuracy.
Advertisement
Advertisement
⚡ Community Insights
Discussion Sentiment
76% Positive
Analyzed from 7525 words in the discussion.
Trending Topics
#cleaning#don#home#robot#more#robots#house#data#money#someone
Discussion (241 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
Maybe training AI and bots is part of what they're trying to accomplish, but I just can't help wonder what else they are trying to do. I am extremely suspicious of any tech companies that make it seem like a great idea to let their tech in my house.
I can't imagine what is going to happen when, if this company ever really develops cleaning bots, their bots misidentify something as a weapon or drug stash and automatically dial the police. Or one of their bots gets remotely hacked by a vengeful person who then triggers the bot to call in a SWAT team.
Also, if this kind of labor is the "unskilled" labor that we've all heard of (or have been told is "unskilled"), AI systems shouldn't need any training for it ;)
I find it interesting how many people get worked up about the "skilled/unskilled" terminology though. Just walking to arbitrary waypoints is an extraordinary feet in itself - if you dropped me in the past and told me to build something which walks (or even just traverses) as such I would likely not achieve it in my lifetime, despite having great insight into how we've already accomplished this goal. At the same time, people know listing "mastered the ability to walk as a child, proficient in running" in the skills section of their resume does not make sense. It seems easy enough to understand the difference in meaning between the two contexts (skills an average human is expected to have over, say, a rock vs skills which differentiate one as able to start a job without waiting for several years of additional development) rather than seek to pick the least relevant interpretation.
OTOH, there are definitely jobs which get conflated as having a low barrier to entry (for the average person) but actually take many years of training to be able to get a typical job in (and not just for the "high end" version of the job). That's definitely a misclassification, but not for something like cleaning homes where the average person is expected to be able to do it themselves.
Isn't the barrier to entry due to the jobs not allowing for mistakes? Cleaning has a high tolerance for mistakes (e.g. missing bits, leaving streaks on windows etc) and so it's fine for an inexperienced cleaner to learn from their mistakes whilst doing the job. However, people would not be happy for a lawyer or surgeon to be learning from their mistakes whilst working - they are expected to already be competent and mistakes are generally very damaging.
The police basically already have this in the form of building records. Unless you live in a really old building or you've made unapproved modifications, they've got an accurate layout if they care to look.
One data point offers a drawing of where the walls are, another paints a picture of where everything the occupant owns is sitting.
Is there?
I assume you are being tongue-in-cheek, but too subtle
Perhaps more to thieves who can make sure they break into a place worth raiding.
Why would they do that?
Airbnb should invest in Shift, continue to encourage exorbitant cleaning fees, and subsidize discounts for hosts so that they're incentivized to fire their current housekeeping providers and switch to Shift.
Among other issues, it likely causes knock-on problems for tomorrow’s reservations.
So either Bot Company damaged property and is trying to pretend they didn't. Or they are incompetent and failed to document the state of the property or handle the owners complaints appropriately.
Given that their training robots and would therefore be collecting as much data as possible, including camera data, I'm leaning towards malice instead of ignorance.
Not every airbnb host has a professional cleaning staff, and some of those who do may sometimes wish to check the status of their property. I don't find anything strange, let alone "bizarre".
I see cleaning your own home, as well as other chores (dishes, laundry) as an act of self-hygiene. If you want a robot to do your chores, that gives me the same feeling as desiring a robot to bathe you, wipe your bottom and genitals after the toilet, brush your teeth for you etc.
Of course these are not apples to oranges, but I can't shake the feeling that you lose something about being a living, breathing being when you give up these mundane chores.
It would allow elderly to regain a certain amount of independence. Often they start having trouble with just 1 or 2 of these tasks, but then a home health aide is needed or they have to get put in a nursing home. The cost of this kind of care is $5000 - $20k a month. So there's a lot of money on the table for a good robot.
Cleaning your ass or helping you shower is magnitudes more sensitive and complex
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4Gh_IcK8UM
aka electric toothbrush
> wipe your bottom and genitals after the toilet
aka a bidet (or a toilet seat with a bidet)
> robot to bathe you
aka a shower
> dishes
aka a dishwasher
> laundry
aka a washer
If you want to do stuff yourself, use a manual toothbrush, learn how to wash your own clothes without a washer (people do this all the time, BTW), wash your own dishes without a dishwasher, don't use dry cleaning services, and use a bucket to take a bath. Also, don't use a vacuum cleaner.
> but I can't shake the feeling that you lose something about being a living, breathing being when you give up these mundane chores.
Say that when you have 3 kids, and cook most of the meals (i.e. no takeouts).
A subject is at the top of a cliff, facing the sea.
"I'd like to see the sea scenery better by approaching the edge".
A step is undertaken. The harpoon enters the mind.
"Oh, so I took this step, I've got to take another one".
N steps are undertaken. The subject is at the very edge right now.
"But hey, one can't stop the progress. Red lines, enough is enough, notions of overdevelopment etc are all excuses for luddites who don't value the merits of automation, easing the humankind's burden and removing all obstacles on the way to the best sea view".
A step more is undertaken.
Thunderous applause, turning into a standing ovation. And... Curtain!
The key is this:
> finances mostly forced
For a while I even hand washed when I did have a dishwasher. Then I realized that was a mistake and I started utilizing it (the dishwasher uses less water, and less energy to heat the water compared to my running the tap on warm).
The point is that after N kids, it stops being therapeutic and merely something you just have to do, and you're happy if you can afford a way not to do it.
One does not simply invest in something new without any effort to make the old look medievally obscurant.
I agree with the rest of your comment but fuck dry cleaning services. Who does dry cleaning regularly?
Thing is, today, as an adult, I'm painfully aware that I'm mortal and life is limited and time is the most precious resource available to me. I'm not religious so I don't believe in after-life reward for being a good boy either. So I'm a little bit more mindful / little less self-flagellating, than I used to be, about these things.
For myself in particular:
* Yes, I shower and wipe my own bottom :)
* I am the dishes and laundry queen in my family, though I definitely use laundry machine (curious where that would fit in your matrix btw? :)
* I don't mind the act of lawn mowing but I absolutely resent the randomness of it - at some point north american society decided that we/they will 1. Adopt a very specific fast growing grass for ALL the lawns and 2. Having it more than ~5cm long is an affront to man and god and neighbourhood alike. Why they haven't just culturally picked cloverleaf or something is beyond me
* I like organizing my living space but I get zero sense of satisfaction out of vacuuming, dusting, and general maintenance. Many other people love it! In turn though, they probably get zero need to constantly rearchitect their home network like I do :->
In sum - I personally put laundry machine and auto-vacuum in very different category than showers and wiping bottoms, but if you lump them together, much power to you, though I don't think it's a tax bracket thing necessarily :)
So if you're an hourly contract worker, and you would otherwise be billing $100/hr to write code or something, then it makes sense to pay a gardener to mow your lawn and a plumber to fix your toilet, as long as it's less than you're making.
But instead, if you'd otherwise just be doom scrolling on your phone or jerking off, you might as well mow that lawn yourself. Paying someone any amount of money is a waste.
I pretty much DIY everything around the house. I work hard for my money, and it feels lazy and wasteful to just ship it off to someone else to do what I am fully capable of doing myself. Maybe when I'm 80 and have trouble walking, I'll pay someone to move furniture around or wash my roof. But not while I'm able bodied.
It sounds like you're saying "pay someone to save you time if you use the time to work, but not if you use the time to relax". One of the best possible uses of money is to save you time, no matter what you use the time for.
That's the key insight and difference, and not one we can necessarily persuade each other :). My time is worth a LOT to me. I can use the time to play with my kids, be with my wife, play a video game or a musical instrument, read a book, or even doomscroll, if that's what my brain needs at the time. These are things that bring me joy, and mowing the lawn doesn't. I spend a lot of my time doing things out of necessity that don't bring me joy. I have precious little time for things that do bring me joy. I'm not looking to optimize for things I hate.
Don't get me wrong, as I said, I DO laundry and dishes and cleaning and stupid lawn mowing (grr!) and some repairs etc (I don't even have a rumba :). I used to do more car maintenance myself. But when I do bring somebody in to do the work, I do not feel guilty about it - I work my ass off doing things I'm good at and being paid for it, and in turn I sometimes pay others who are way better and more efficient at something than I am :).
Milleage may vary :).
So let's say you're playing a video game, and someone asks you to mow their lawn. How much money would they have to offer you to induce you to do so? That's the marginal dollar value of that video game over mowing their lawn.
Or let's say you're playing a video game, and you need to mow your own lawn, but you don't want to. How much would you pay someone else to mow it so that you can keep playing your game?
Of course, those two amounts would be different because you probably feel differently about mowing your own lawn than about mowing someone else's. The difference between the two should (if you're being consistent, which humans seldom are) be how much would someone have to pay you to mow their lawn instead of your own.
Trying to fix it now. But the time I've lost already, this time is gone.
That’s not middle class. You were poor. I know that, because I was there.
I sometimes dream of being rich enough to afford a servant to do this for me. But realistically even if I was that rich I wouldn't subject someone to that indignity.
It’s so freeing.
It feels well worth even a few hours of my work to pay for the time of the (so efficient) cleaners. So much better value than things most people don’t think twice about paying for (streaming services, faster Internet, a nice car, etc…)
I hired a lovely person recently who comes to the house for exactly that hour a day every day and now does this task for us. It's the most "luxury" labor service I've ever hired, and it, easily and without question, the best use of $$ I have ever spent on a service. I have an extra hour to hang with the family now and our kitchen & play area are now fully reset and spotless every night when we go to bed and every morning when we wake up.
It's not streaming service cheap, and I'm thankful that my business can generate enough $ to allow me to pay for this service, but man is it freeing and wonderful.
I'd much rather pay a nice human significantly more money than have it done by a stinking robot.
From late 19th to early 20th centuries, it was common for British workers to hire charwomen to clean their places. Domestic service was the most typical job for women by the time. Historically it wasn't really something exclusive for the rich.
you mean like a dishwasher or a washing machine?
A different question is. Imagine that you are living with a partner and you agree on a distribution of labour. Let’s say you do the hunting and your partner cleans the house. They are happy with the agreement and fully consent to it. Do you feel it takes away from you being a living, breathing being?
It’s not about tax bracket. You can still pay your cleaning folks a reasonable wage and be kind to them. You can still treat them like human beings. It’s vulnerable to have another person tidy up after you, but fine in the end. Turns out vacuuming isn’t really that personal.
It’s one thing to have NEVER done the mundane chores and entirely another to save some time in your day while you’re at work to have someone help with it.
"Dad we're putting you in a nursing home"
"I don't wanna"
"Dad, there's people where who'll wipe your ass for you"
"Louis pack your things"
a bit like the difference of brushing your teeth and going to a hygienist.
The first organizes things and may do the laundry or put away groceries or something. I wouldn't know for certain, as my income doesn't yet reach to those heady heights.
The second vacuums, mops, cleans bathrooms, etc.
House Cleaner is not going to vacuum around your piles of dirty laundry.
Deep cleaning isn't that hard and, for now, it's relatively inexpensive. There are still only a handful of products where price gouging has occurred due to influencer marketing.
All that needs to happen is another "Tide Pods" type of incident for Amazon to ban commercial cleaning supplies or anything with an SDS. Of course we make the robots do dirty work in this future, and boom you've got another form of surveillance threatening the 4th amendment.
"What's the matter bro? Tryin' to clean up a murder scene or what? huh huh huh"
> desiring a robot to bathe you, wipe your bottom and genitals after the toilet, brush your teeth for you
My (EU) country is heading demographic catastrophe, so either I die in my feces or robots help me with hygiene.
Meanwhile I plan to downsize my home to reduce todays chores.
According to that article:
- The global cleaning services market is predicted to grow to roughly $482 billion in 2026 and $859 billion by 2030 with a 7.5% annual growth rate.
- There are over 1.4+ million cleaners currently employed in the U.S.
- The U.S. janitorial services market is worth $112 billion, with 1+ million cleaning businesses as of 2026.
- The average annual pay for a cleaning business owner in the U.S. is $127,973 a year.
- The average annual salary for a house cleaner in the U.S is $35,034.
- 73% of cleaning business owners expect revenue growth in 2026.
- 55% of cleaning businesses raised prices in the last 12 months.
- 41% of households use recurring cleaning services, as customers shift from one-time bookings to weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly plans.
[0] - https://www.getjobber.com/academy/cleaning/cleaning-industry...
Wouldn't that put OP in the majority?
https://tryautobrush.com/
aka electric toothbrush
> wipe your bottom and genitals after the toilet
aka a bidet (or a toilet seat with a bidet)
> robot to bathe you
aka a shower
> dishes
aka a dishwasher
> laundry
aka a washer
If you want to do stuff yourself, use a manual toothbrush, learn how to wash your own clothes without a washer (people do this all the time, BTW), wash your own dishes without a dishwasher, don't use dry cleaning services, and use a bucket to take a bath. Also, don't use a vacuum cleaner.
I knew a middle-aged waitress who had a cleaning woman come in every week or two.
After being on her feet for 10 hours dealing with jerks in a diner six days a week, she was too tired to do more than basic cleaning. The price was well worth it to her.
Hotel's girl management might be more undertanding than I assume, though.
autocorrect glitch?
nonsense. If it worked for one hotel, that would be ground breaking. Hotels would line up to have theirs be the next test case.
> hotel rooms are regular/familiar
This quote about robots doing home cleaning has been living in my head rent free, and refusing to cleanup after itself, for over a decade. It seemed so crazy to me in 2015 that anyone would seriously consider home cleaning robots to be on a realistic timeline. Yet here we are in 2026 and robots could plausibly clean our homes beyond vacuuming and mopping.
Humans training robots now completely makes sense to me. I think Sunday Robotics use of people wearing "skill capture gloves" [1] that both capture data and limit range of motion to that of the robotic hands is particularly clever. I wish success to both these and other companies in the space, so that someday soon there will be just a little fewer housework around the house, and we move a bit closer to the Jetsons.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9986693 [1] https://youtu.be/QeVnwtCANZ8?si=JoSps5MCxs7zPp0f&t=33
It is very bold to just assert this is true. Certainly it will be possible eventually, but there's still _lots_ of disagreement in the industry about what is realistic within 3-5 years. See this rodney brooks article for a good overview of the difficulties: https://rodneybrooks.com/why-todays-humanoids-wont-learn-dex...
The fact that devgutt was talking about this in 2015 gives some hint at its unique combination of [seems really easy] and [is really hard].
Modern robots are nowhere near being bottlenecked by hardware. They are all bottlenecked by AI. Today's hardware with perfect AI would absolutely demolish tasks like "clean a house". Today's AI with perfect hardware would still fumble.
We know that because we can't even train an AI policy that would reliably solve tasks in a sim with perfect sensors and perfect execution.
It is possible for both elements to be insufficient.
Any company like this actively working to liquidate entire categories of menial work with no tangible support for sufficient social safety net programs and retraining is both sociopathic and digging its own grave for the inevitable populist backlash against what's shaping up to be the biggest class war in history. It's too broad a change, too fast, and these companies are running society off a cliff with no care for what happens when gravity kicks in. (Apart from the techno-fascists who plan on bunkering down while crushing the desperate masses with surveillance and killer robots, ofc.)
I don't think that they can plausibly clean our homes. I don't think it's much different from back in 2015 when everyone was talking about self-driving cars and auto-pilot yet here we are over a decade later and nobody is getting into their car and then taking a nap on the way to the office. Most people don't have any kind of "self-driving" car today at all. My guess is that if we have housecleaning robots in 2036 they'll be shitty at it and very much watered down from the Jetsons style future tech companies want you to daydream about today.
Except that you can do exactly this with Waymo for the last 2 years.
All I’m saying is careful what you wish for. Wish fulfillment is always outsourced to the Djinn.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/01/10/1066500/roomba-i...
The internet sucks.
https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
I've never seen so much disdain for minimum wage workers.
------ "For example, when Jane entered the restroom, Manna used a simple position tracking system built into her headset to know that she had arrived. Manna then told her the first step.
Manna: “Place the ‘wet floor’ warning cone outside the door please.”
When Jane completed the task, she would speak the word “OK” into her headset and Manna moved to the next step in the restroom cleaning procedure.
Manna: “Please block the door open with the door stop.”
Jane: “OK.”
Manna: “Please retrieve the bucket and mop from the supply closet.”
Jane: “OK.”
And so on."
https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/26/human-archive-taps-into-in...
I wonder how they expect people to work, to be able to buy all the junk they put out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N24UqL389rs
You will be amused.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N24UqL389rs
I'm astonished they (sill) exist. The idea is so beyond stupid, I thought it was a joke at first.
I'm still not really sure that its not one...interesting times.
At this point I wouldn't allow an internet connected roomba into my home, I'm sure as hell not going to let a robot maid in.
I'm not sure I'd call meta glasses the "latest and greatest". Even if there were no privacy concerns I wouldn't feel left out when it comes to giving facebook the ability to plaster ads on every surface in your field of vision. The tech has a lot of potential, but the product people are using today is trash I feel better off without.
Would a robot report a wife beater? Child abuser? Could a robot legally physically intervene if a human cries for help from another human? Will the robots be hacker proof? Will robots assassinate people in their sleep?
there are lots of different ways to take this, have fun arguing about the different edge cases and what the constitution (notice that I did not specify which constitution - there are many countries with different ones and different courts!) says.
Even though it is free, they could even take it from the deposit of renters moving out.
If accquirer acquires, it's because seller sold.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48317093
And since it's humans they probably won't do all that damage like in the other thread today ("SF startup is testing robots in Airbnbs, and trashing them, lawsuit claims"): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48317093
Airbnb host alleges $12k in damages after SF startup tested a robot in his house
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48317093
I don't really agree in certain cases of apartment cleaning.
I learned a lot with my first one bedroom apartment, and I wouldn't trade that experience for anything. There's a fine line between luxury/convenience and laziness/helplessness.
It doesn't really sit right with me even though I do think a proper science fiction cleaning robot can become a great thing.
All this delegating leads to real atrophy of understanding. No one wants to admit it though. Certainly not the people whose salaries depend on not admitting it.
I have MS. Currently, my sister lives with me and does the chores (I pay our bills), but she's planning on moving out soon.
Paying for a human cleaner is doable but expensive for me, and my disability means keeping up with chores can be difficult or dangerous. For example, I have balance issues that can make using a ladder or stepstool dangerous.
It's less that I'm lazy and more that I don't want to crack my head open + there are multiple times a year when all I can do is work and rest in bed.
OK, but do they store the footage in such a way that it's not tied to my physical address? This dataset is useful in one particular way--to identify valuable targets to rob. When they get hacked, will the attackers be able to exfiltrate these data in an actionable way? I don't get why folks don't ask the obvious questions. The company's answer to this question (probably involving lots of squirming and weasel words) would have made the story interesting.
EDIT: <facepalm>these are probably the people who have an amazon alexa, a google nest, a ring door lock, an app to remote start their car, and another app to control their oven</facepalm>