podcast friday

[sabotabby]

Between my regular rotation of Bastards/Cool People/ICHH, I've been slowly making my way through Better Offline's coverage of CES. Technically this is work-related and I should be listening on work time (obviously I'm not) but if you want like 20 hours of coverage about what's new in tech (spoiler: not very much), AI crammed into everything, and robots that still can't fold laundry, it's worth checking out.

It's really interesting from more than just Ed Zitron's usual professional hater perspective—which, to be clear, is something I appreciate as a professional hater myself. Because with something like CES, the questions of "who is this for" and "what is the use case" are actually critical and in your face. It's the Consumer Electronics Show, after all. So while robots in manufacturing are obviously a thing, the use case for household robots is a bit more questionable. The most successful household robot, the Roomba, recently went out of business, because as it turns out, they're not useful for 1) most households, which have things like furniture and sometimes stairs, or 2) the parts of your floor that you really don't want to vacuum, like tricky corners. They are good for scaring cats or if your cat is not scared of them, transportation.

The episodes are full of even more absurd technology to solve problems that aren't real, like fridges that open for you, meant to automate the parts of your life that you actually want to enjoy. We want machines to do menial tasks, leaving creative work for us. As it turns out, they're quite good at menial tasks in a factory, where you're doing the same thing repeatedly, but not in a house, where you have to do a lot of little annoying things.

But what we (normal people) want is very different from what techbros want. Remember, these are people who have not had to experience challenges in real life, so when they think about what a person might need, they come up with things like "what if I didn't want to cook and I got my fridge to open for me and dumped a bunch of ingredients in a pot and it would make food, and also a robot read a bedtime story to my child?" The fantasy, of course, is having a slave. But that is not the fantasy that normal people have, and there's an incredible disconnect between where tech is heading and actual human needs. 

Anyway, I am working through it very slowly because, as I said, 20+ hours, but it's worth a listen. Also if anyone can find pictures of Robert Evans in an exoskeleton I would like to see that for reasons.

Comments

[sovay]

The most successful household robot, the Roomba, recently went out of business

I hadn't heard!

My brother has an internet-of-things refrigerator that he did not purchase for its R.U.R. capabilities, but periodically he reports that it will do something like tell you what's inside it without you having to open the door or change the temperature at a distance of blocks because you have pinged it with your phone and I have difficulty believing in its reality; it feels as though it should exist in a film by Jacques Tati, with Monsieur Hulot peering at it with his usual quizzical techno-skepticism, and then he should try to do something like remove the ice tray and cause it to disassemble itself.

[greylock]

I did hear Trump tariffs played a role (or he blocked a sale to China that would ave avoided liquidation).

(I do love the R.U.R reference too).

[sovay]

I did hear Trump tariffs played a role (or he blocked a sale to China that would ave avoided liquidation).

You're right. Why not move erratically and break as many things as possible.

(I do love the R.U.R reference too).

(Thank you!)

[moon_custafer]

The original internet-of-things Coke machine at least had the excuse of being several floors away from the computer science department, whose staff and students therefore had reason to want to know if it was stocked, and if the bottles had had a chance to get cold, before they made the journey.

https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/iot-first-device

[sovay]

The original internet-of-things Coke machine at least had the excuse of being several floors away from the computer science department, whose staff and students therefore had reason to want to know if it was stocked, and if the bottles had had a chance to get cold, before they made the journey.

And it makes absolute sense to me as a project generated by computer science grad students, whereas the tech-bro internet of things reminds me of that cartoon by Kate Beaton where Isambard Kingdom Brunel has to meet steampunk.

[kore]

I would kill for something like that which tells me if my laundry down in the cold, dank, scary sub-basement of our apartment house is done or not.

[sabotabby]

This is a valid use for this kind of thing, but I don't know if anyone would invent that because it solves a need for people in apartments.

[sabotabby]

You know, when I was a kid, I wanted some fancy thing over a cheaper thing, and my mum said, "you know, the more electronics in it, the more there is to break." She was right, and this has been true my entire life.

[greylock]

fridges that open for you, meant to automate the parts of your life that you actually want to enjoy

Given how 'dumb' home alarms go off with spiders crawling over the sensors, I am sure this is an awesome idea.

I only know of CES via reports (and not enough to listen to 20 minutes of podcast, much less more), so I know a little about this year's offerings, including the Waifu agent (it comes in husbando mode too) that no one understands, piss-discs in your toilet, and so many "smart devices" I don't understand.

The fantasy, of course, is having a slave.

Not a fantasy, if you put your morals to one side. Some slaves can last decades, with low maintenance.
(Ie, the one from the UK this week who was kept for 25 years).

[sabotabby]

I have two security cameras and they're constantly pinging me throughout the door with alerts. One it was a genuine cause for concern. Every other time it's been an overly enthusiastic breeze or a cat or a raccoon.

The thing with robot slaves is that you gotta maintain them, and it's more work than just doing the thing yourself.

[dissectionist]

Can’t lie, I love our knockoff Roomba. But the reason for that is because 1) all of us hate cleaning so we simply don’t do things like sweeping on a regular basis, so 2) having a robot sweep imperfectly every day is still a huge improvement on us sweeping once every week or two. Every day its disposal bin is packed full of cat fur and dust, and all of that dust and fur was previously hanging around for a week or two and getting in our lungs. It also forces us to not let clutter accumulate on the floor, because when there’s clutter, the robot can’t do its thing.

For people who clean daily, yes, the robot won’t do as good a job and it will be a downgrade. For families like mine who despise cleaning, it’s a vast improvement.

[sabotabby]

That's what I figured, but it turns out that I have too much furniture for it even to work on one floor.

[dissectionist]

Yeah, for us we just run it in the kitchen and first-floor hallway. It only has to navigate around the kitchen island and table/chairs. There’s a couple sets of stairs but it has proximity sensors and tilt alarms, so if it doesn’t detect ground in front of it, it’ll stop. Sometimes it goes a little further but as soon as it tilts it stops and then it’ll start beeping for rescue. We only have it get caught somewhere a few times a month, and it runs automatically every day. Considering it was a cheap knockoff, it seems to do better than what I’ve read about the high-end ones.

[blogcutter]

This is something I can definitely relate to! One of my pet peeves is the way touch-sensitive screens have replaced the old dials and knobs, which were MUCH sturdier, more human-friendly and easier to repair. When we first got our state-of-the art new stove, our cat would jump up on the stovetop in the middle of the night, thereby turning on the oven to 350 degrees F. Goodness knows how much electricity got wasted that way! We quickly learned to set the control-lock before going to bed at night, although occasionally we forgot (or maybe the cat managed to unlock it).

Then there was the dishwasher that became unusable because the touch-sensitive controls simply wore out. Fortunately we had a maintenance contract on that one, so we weren't much out of pocket, just otherwise inconvenienced.

They don't make stuff like they used to!

[sabotabby]

When I bought a DSLR camera, they asked me when I last had a camera, and it was when there was no D in the acronym. The guy (who was pretty young) said, "look, would you prefer one with a lot of dials and buttons on the outside?" Which. Yes. I did, and still do, because as convenient as a touch screen is, I'm constantly bashing it.

[ethelmay]

I don't think Roomba going out of business meant the product was bad. I know quite a few people who use them (or knockoffs). Same with Instant Pots, which also went out of business despite enthusiastic popular support.

The whole worrying-about-computer-consciousness thing, incidentally, seems to me to be displaced anxiety about workers and/or slaves and/or women being Real People With, Like, Rights and Shit.

[sabotabby]

Oh, they actually talk about the Instapot too! It's essentially the opposite problem, which is that it's too good a product. People buy one, it works exactly as advertised, and it pretty much doesn't break, so no one buys a new one. Even though sales are relatively steady (new people reach adulthood and require Instapots, etc.) that is not enough for shareholders.

The whole worrying-about-computer-consciousness thing, incidentally, seems to me to be displaced anxiety about workers and/or slaves and/or women being Real People With, Like, Rights and Shit.

100%. All this fussing over AI taking over is a fear of worker revolt.

[sovay]

All this fussing over AI taking over is a fear of worker revolt.

Dammit, Čapek.

[snickfic]

Huh, wild about Roomba! I bought a Roomba knockoff a while back, and it turned out to be weirdly bad at vacuuming cat litter off a hard floor, which was the main thing I bought it to do. Now I have a battery-powered stick vacuum, and that's turned out to be a better solution.

[sabotabby]

Saaaaame.

[kore]

I had no idea about the Roomba either. Sounds like Trump killed it? https://www.npr.org/2025/12/15/nx-s1-5644772/tariffs-roomba-irobot-bankruptcy

[sabotabby]

Another reason to hate him, albeit a fairly minor one.

[symbioid]

I wonder if it's a deep seated need, not even for a slave (surely some do) but even more primal. They need a mommy.

"All looked over by machines of loving grace" indeed.

[sabotabby]

Oh, that's also very possible!

I think to a large degree it's that they want a mommy, but they need a friend. So much of AI is just about an anxiety around getting a friend or a love interest.

[symbioid]

Mothers being more primal than slavery if you're Freud, I guess.
But if you're Foucault I guess that would flip, so...

[sabotabby]

Mommy/lover.

[sovay]

there's an incredible disconnect between where tech is heading and actual human needs.

Back in these comments because I just read this article: "If a single click can irrevocably delete years of work, ChatGPT cannot, in my opinion and on the basis of my experience, be considered completely safe for professional use."

[sabotabby]

Here's a fun tidbit: For the first time in my teaching career, a significant percentage of high school students don't know how to save files. Not to a particular folder, they've struggled with that for years, but they don't know where to find the save button on a piece of software or click Control-S and they are constantly losing their work because of this.

[sovay]

they don't know where to find the save button on a piece of software or click Control-S and they are constantly losing their work because of this.

That's depressing! Is it because they expect the application to do it for them or because they don't expect permanence from their apps?

[sabotabby]

I think the first one. This is one of the first generations raised on Chromebooks.

[sovay]

This is one of the first generations raised on Chromebooks.

That sweet, sweet brand loyalty.