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Comment by ceejayoz | original | Weave Robotics launches Isaac 1, a $7,999 home robot with Fall 2026 deliveries
[−]ceejayoz · 2026-07-01 Wed 19:12 UTC · link
> The company says the robot completes Laundry Flow and Daily Reset tasks autonomously by default, but uses teleoperation assistance when needed to guarantee task completion.

Suspiciously absent: a rough idea of what percentage of tasks need the assistance.

[−]guiomie · 2026-07-01 Wed 19:36 UTC · link
Same, I suspect its awful and their strategy is to improve and rely less on it, which would be fine to me if they'd be transparent about it.
[−]throw310822 · 2026-07-01 Wed 20:16 UTC · link
Can't wait for the Uber version, where anyone with five minutes to spare can fold your laundry from their home.
[−]gigel82 · 2026-07-01 Wed 22:33 UTC · link
Holy dystopian shit, you might be right. This might just be their new favorite answer when people ask what are all the jobless humans to do after the AI takeover? This... live in squalor, hooked up to VR headsets and doing menial work remotely for the oligarch class, while the AI learns the last few non-automated tasks from them. It's a theme I've seen in many movies over the years.
[−]deadbabe · 2026-07-01 Wed 22:46 UTC · link
Or maybe it can be used to provide job opportunities to people currently underserved, for example, if you are bound to a hospital bed you can get a VR telepresence job to make some money and help pay your medical bills.
[−]ceejayoz · 2026-07-01 Wed 22:47 UTC · link
Gross.
[−]gigel82 · 2026-07-02 Thu 00:01 UTC · link
We're doomed if regular people have fully absorbed the propaganda to the extent that they'd think asking invalid hospital-bed-ridden people to work remotely for the uber-rich rather than fixing the tax situation so that those uber-rich can buy one less golden toilet for their private planes (and the state can provide for those poor people) is a good idea.
[−]ryandrake · 2026-07-02 Thu 00:39 UTC · link
I think (hope) the poster who suggested that was being sarcastic, although it's hard to tell anymore!
[−]Schiendelman · 2026-07-02 Thu 04:27 UTC · link
The math doesn't math. You could tax all the ultra rich people at 100% and it wouldn't significantly change the social contract. The part people don't like hearing is that it's a lot of the middle class that has to pay much higher taxes if you want those guarantees of minimum living standards.
[−]goobatrooba · 2026-07-02 Thu 06:06 UTC · link
Citation needed.

Here is one for the contrary (just a book review. The citation is the book).

https://cleantechnica.com/2026/04/06/we-need-to-tax-billiona...

[−]fn-mote · 2026-07-01 Wed 23:01 UTC · link
The oligarchs just have people to come do these tasks.

The target audience is the “regular-rich bourgeoisie”.

[−]gigel82 · 2026-07-02 Thu 00:02 UTC · link
That's an ever-dwindling section of the population. Middle class and upper middle class is going away, we're very clearly heading towards ultra-polarization.
[−]ryandrake · 2026-07-02 Thu 00:15 UTC · link
For some reason I always get pushback for pointing it out, but we are very quickly heading towards a bifurcated world like Elysium, possibly minus the space station, where a tiny ultra-rich class lives in luxury while physically separated and protected from billions who live in squalor. We're producing everything needed to build and enforce that world!
[−]mlmonkey · 2026-07-02 Thu 00:28 UTC · link
Don't worry, Musk is working on the Space Station part ...
[−]netsharc · 2026-07-02 Thu 00:48 UTC · link
So, we'll have Elysium minus the space station..
[−]selectodude · 2026-07-02 Thu 04:47 UTC · link
The meek shall inherit the Earth… but not the moon.
[−]genewitch · 2026-07-02 Thu 05:15 UTC · link
That's a Patton Oswalt bit; "no, haha, the meek shall inherit the earth, that's right. we're going to Mars. Bye!"
[−]azan_ · 2026-07-01 Wed 23:03 UTC · link
How is it worse compared with workers that are currently employed by the oligarch class? It's not like they don't have people doing menial work for them right now. And automation of menial work is a good thing!
[−]storus · 2026-07-02 Thu 02:28 UTC · link
Do you think the current AI automated menial work and left only the fun parts? It seems like the opposite, it took any fun from coding and left the drudgery of debugging code one didn't write intact.
[−]azan_ · 2026-07-02 Thu 06:12 UTC · link
Please read the comment I’m replying to.
[−]smnc · 2026-07-02 Thu 00:03 UTC · link
Alex Rivera's 2008 movie Sleep Dealer is not without flaws, but it left quite an impression on me. I watched it it after seeing it recommended here in a comments thread on an article about military drone operators, I should probably watch it again with fresh eyes.

EDIT: Jeez, it looks like that's an 11 years old thread. Time does indeed fly.

EDIT 2: The source for the claim is paywalled, but this is how the Cultural impact chapter of the movie's Wikipedia page closes:

> In 2025, Rivera noted that a tech CEO claimed the film had been an inspiration for his company to employ a remote labour force in the Global South in order to operate robots in the Global North, and that the film has been used in pitch decks for various start-ups.

... once again bringing to mind the "At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from the classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus" meme.

[−]ares623 · 2026-07-02 Thu 03:22 UTC · link
Nah. At least with Uber the driver has self-preservation as an incentive to not just fuck around. What incentive would a freelance nobody have to not do the funniest shit possible inside a stranger's home at least once.
[−]coffeebeqn · 2026-07-01 Wed 22:33 UTC · link
Tele-operation through a video feed(?) inside my home. Yeah that sounds pretty creepy
[−]arcticbull · 2026-07-01 Wed 23:19 UTC · link
If I wanted someone taking a look at all the stuff in my home, I'd just pay a cleaner here instead of one behind a desk in what I assume is a low-labor-cost locale. For $50/hr I can have them come in every day for 160 days, and they can manage stairs.
[−]BobbyTables2 · 2026-07-02 Thu 03:02 UTC · link
They’re also much less likely to film their activities and upload it to the Internet…
[−]amelius · 2026-07-02 Thu 08:10 UTC · link
And store it in a large database with eternal retention.
[−]bobbylarrybobby · 2026-07-02 Thu 04:20 UTC · link
Paying for someone to clean your house? Thats so last year.

Why an AI company cleaned my New York City apartment for free

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpwerjy20kyo

[−]arcticbull · 2026-07-02 Thu 07:58 UTC · link
> However, Kilic said Shift was "the most honest platform by far regarding what happens to your data".

Good good

[−]altmanaltman · 2026-07-02 Thu 04:56 UTC · link
Except these ai fucks are trying to put cameras on all such labor to train future world models and businesses are okay with it since they get paid for doing nothing extra. So yeah they can manage stairs but they might also be recording everything they do
[−]bonestamp2 · 2026-07-02 Thu 05:02 UTC · link
Use an independent cleaner. My cleaning lady is a great cleaner, but she can barely manage her cellphone, so she's not training AIs.
[−]taffydavid · 2026-07-02 Thu 08:06 UTC · link
"I won't let a human clean my house because AI companies might be paying them to help train future housework robots" is some nuclear grade paranoia.
[−]throwitaway222 · 2026-07-02 Thu 05:07 UTC · link
Can you imagine all the customer support calls asking why it keeps showing up next to the shower?
[−]stubish · 2026-07-02 Thu 05:24 UTC · link
> Suspiciously absent: a rough idea of what percentage of tasks need the assistance.

This will almost certainly depend on the customer and residence. I don't think subscription pricing will be fair, but it can at least be budgeted for out of pensions and such for the people needing to pay for assistance.

[−]culi · 2026-07-02 Thu 05:39 UTC · link
If I'm gonna be an early adopter and give them such valuable training data, they should at least give me stock options
[−]conductr · 2026-07-02 Thu 05:48 UTC · link
Given how incapable my robotic vacuums and lawnmowers have proven to be, even after several years of iterations, I’d almost prefer if it was all teleoperation and it would hopefully unlock a huge amount of additional tasks it could preform. This would essentially let me hire a human housekeeper at a global vs local wage which is very appealing.
[−]joe_the_user · 2026-07-02 Thu 06:12 UTC · link
The robot has a two pronged gripper. I wonder what teleoperating that to do complex tasks would be like.
[−]greggsy · 2026-07-02 Thu 06:08 UTC · link
The clothes folding is almost certainly a person.

This sort of menial task would likely be given to someone in a poorer part of the world, who ironically will be some of the first to master the first generation of remotely operated high tech robots.

The revolution against the rich will be led by poor precariats armed with robots.

[−]usrnm · 2026-07-02 Thu 06:13 UTC · link
> The revolution against the rich will be led by poor precariats armed with robots

If anything, robots will make rich people richer and their position more secure. Once again, you're hoping for a technological solution to non-technological problems

[−]wartywhoa23 · 2026-07-02 Thu 08:07 UTC · link
> The revolution against the rich will be led by poor precariats armed with robots.

$7,999 a clanker. I can totally imagine hordes of poor people driving around in turret-equipped F-150s packed with robots in evil facemasks.

- Hey, bankster, hands upon the fucking wall!