The Core

Based on companies Y Combinator is funding

https://x.com/snowmaker/status/1773402574332530953

30-post thread with summary of what each company’s doing

One slight problem:

You know what the biggest problem with pushing all-things-AI is? Wrong direction.
I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.

Source:  https://mastodon.social/@AuthorJMac@indiepocalypse.social/112178827044726644

She's got a good point.  It's just like our robotics discussions:  RC wants a robot puppy, I want a robot that will shovel snow off the sidewalk and steps.  Practical stuff so we can get on with having some fun.

I saw an interchange on Twitter about automated kiosks at McDonald’s. Someone predictably said, “See what happens when you raise the minimum wage you stupid liberals!”

Derek Thompson pointed out that with 4% unemployment, these are precisely the sort of repetitive, boring jobs we want automated. He countered that if ATMs were introduced today, people would be saying it was because liberals were forcing the minimum wage up.

Politicians are behind. They still stump about creating jobs. We are in a low-fertility world where what we need is to create workers, particularly workers who can do things that machines cannot.

So yes… robot snow removal, robot laundry, kiosks to take your order…. Humans writing and doing things that involve actual presence (some people will always want live humans playing music and giving massages even if the “product” is theoretically not as good as the robot version)

By the way, in the AI community, AI for dishes and human for writing is a “centaur” model. The reverse is a “reverse centaur”

>Added:  This is still one of the best opening sequences of anything, hands down.

Loved BSG.  We aren't in real AI yet, more the mimicking of intelligence, but when we finally get to AI I think it will be more like the ending of Her than BSG.  Real AI will just think of interaction with us as utterly pointless.

>Wrong direction.

I think the thing is that art and writing are easy for AI, doing the dishes and laundry are harder -- too many uncontrolled, random variables to account for.