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0 points9dev16d ago0 comments

The vast majority of people never even asked for a personal assistant, because that isn’t something normal people have or do need in the first place. They aren’t so occupied/privileged/posh to need someone to do the trivial tasks of daily life for them.

This whole venue of technology is an exercise in ivory tower construction completely disconnected from ordinary people.

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13 comments · 5 top-level

Snoddas16d ago· 6 in thread

I think you are wrong.

They never asked for one becase they never imagined being able to afford one.

The amount of administration organizing a normal household takes I suspect most would be glad to leave to someon/something they trust and that can be held accountable.

Today that someone needs to be a person (imo). But who knows, a startup may be plotting accountable digital assistans as we speak.

0x1d716d ago

I would want someone who could physically work in my house, performing the chores/daily tasks I don't want to.

I have zero use for AI. What's it going to do? Read the 3 emails about bills I get?

Certainly someone out there has a use for this functionality, but when you say "household admin tasks" the last thing I think about are /digital/ admin tasks.

djaro16d ago

I think theres some real use cases in the household department. I would love an AI that I just tell my nutrition goals (I want to eat X calories, Y protein, Z fiber, hit all vitamins) and it just generates a full meal plan for me each day. Like, I go to the store and it made the complete shopping list for me. And automatically updates the rest of the day if I tell it I skipped a meal or ate a snack.

jon-wood16d ago

I get where you're coming from but at least for me you appear to be looking to automate away the interesting bits while being left with the tedious ones. What I want is the opposite to what you're asking for - let me dump a rough meal plan into whatever thing is doing this giving an overview of what meals I want to cook this week and then have it go place an order with the supermarket for delivery of the necessary ingredients taking into account what I've got in the house already.

watwut16d ago

Eating disorder as a service does indeed sound like a business plan.

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tempfile16d ago

Obligatory: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Feb/3/a-computer-can-never-be...

pnut16d ago

Pretty sure unaccountability is a desired feature of management decisions in most organisations.

That quote has an unexpressed precondition to the effect of "In order for an organisation to be objectively well run..." or "In order for an organisation to equitably benefit all stakeholders at all levels..." etc

coffeemug16d ago· 2 in thread

Giving normal people something that has only been available to rich people is a staple of technological innovation. The problem in this case with Siri isn’t that people don’t want an assistant. It’s that it doesn’t actually work yet.

9devOP16d ago

But normal people have entirely different problems than rich people do! The amount of administrative overhead that would warrant a personal assistant is just vastly lower - most normal people:

  - don't travel frequently, 
  - don't have so many complex inquiries that require someone to research,
  - don't have super complicated taxes to file, 
  - don't go eating out in fancy restaurants that require special skills to get reservations in, 
  - don't have so many meetings to attend, 
  - don't receive hundreds of emails per day,
  - don't work on multiple projects at the same time,
  - don't organise festivities and social gatherings all the time.

Yeah, there probably are some things that could be simplified by delegating to someone, but they don't justify a human PA at all; and out of the remaining tasks, most are not really digital in nature: Going for groceries, doing chores, child and elderly care, interacting with other people, and so on. Digital assistants can't help you with any of these.

The one thing that would be useful - a kind of "chief of staff" that monitors your entire digital life and prioritises your every next step - is the antithesis to Siri and the like, which are merely reactive to your requests, not proactive in figuring out what needs your attention next. Let alone that that would be a total privacy nightmare, and a prime candidate for mass manipulation at scale.

dperks16d ago

Bang on.

Like you said, the non-digital things are where people need assistance most. Fold my laundry, clean my house, clean my car, make me dinner. At an affordable cost. I don't need you to book my trip to an all inclusive resort that I go on once a year at most.

We're at this place where AI/LLMs is truly incredible technology, but the futuristic vision of robot assistants doing things for you at an attainable cost isn't there yet - so a lot of companies/startups are trying to force feed purely digital consumer AI products (assistants/agents) that no one wants.

jiscariot16d ago

In the US, every time I file my taxes, I wonder what % of people don't meet the cognitive barrier to successfully file. I suspect a large portion of people offload tax filing to a service or accountant for numerous reasons, which is basically a personal assistant.

microtonal16d ago

Personally, I'd more interested in Reminders actually being able to sync lists properly and not delayed or reshuffling items while I'm typing before they would work on a personal assistant. Reminders (like Siri) has become the favorite joke of the family by now.

They don't even seem to get the basics right, why would I want another layer on top?

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spotonm816d ago

That's why I like reading HN. These people are smart enough to destroy the world but too stupid to realise they're doing it

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