[vFunct]

MCP everywhere is going to be such a societal changer. Once your bank and credit cards get MCP servers, that's it. It's next level society.

Like, immediately, I want it to order me some groceries based on what it sees in my fridge and what I cook.

And to remind me to change my air filters. Or book my vacation for me, knowing I like a mediterranean vibe and Bistecco Florentine.

I am absolutely excited for all of this. It really is as big as the iPhone.

[globnomulous]

This sounds like hell on earth to me. Automating the "boring" stuff does not sound healthy.

Two stories:

When my father was in Japan in the 1970s, he was strutting around like a rooster in an obnoxious, white suit and crossed paths with a Zen monk quietly sweeping a path. The monk looked up at him and my father felt, he said, about six inches tall. The dignity and focus of the monk put my father to shame.

I was once in Princeton, NJ, waiting to cross a crosswalk at a streetlight. Someone extremely famous (I think) and certainly incredibly wealthy was in a car at an intersection, waiting for the car in front of her to turn so she could proceed. She was beside herself -- honking, screaming, practically crying. Being asked to wait for someone else was more than she could stand.

Obviously these experiences relied on a lot of assumptions and interpretation on my and my father's part. I'm sure there were other ways of reading the monk and driver.

Regardless, when I imagine the world you're describing, what I see is a combination of my father in the white suit and the driver: spoiled, incompetent, impatient, egocentric people incapable of enduring the indignity of having to make any decisions for themselves, wait for anything, or stoop to the humiliating depths of thinking about the boring stuff. In a weird, backwards way, what you're describing also sounds like subservience to me.

Smartphones are bad for people. This sounds much, much, much worse. I hope I die before/if the technology "matures."

[bwfan123]

> In a weird, backwards way, what you're describing also sounds like subservience to me

Arent we taking the next step to the dystopia portrayed in Matrix. Many of us are already trapped in the social media matrix and manipulated by it. We can now outsource all our cognition and decision making to these machines, and sip cocktails on a beach, while these machines show us the narratives we want to hear.

[vFunct]

Yah the boring stuff is unnecessary and economically unproductive. No one should be forced to be interested in things they aren’t interested in. I absolutely do not want to spend any time on the things you find interesting.

Life’s too short to figure out what kind of curtains are best for my home.

[piva00]

For speeding up chores it can be useful but removing the actual fun part of experiences, the research, the looking into, the figuring out, to instead only get the result of it sounds like a quick path into unfulfilling experiences.

But to be honest, I don't think it will get to the state you dream about, just like smart homes never got close and are more of a hassle than an actual life improvement. Unless it is almost 100% perfect it will error out in ways that are extremely annoying, ordering the wrong groceries, booking the wrong trip, etc. It's really hard to cross over the point where it's absolutely helpful without hiccups.

[vFunct]

Yah I definitely want to be fulfilled by having to pick a health insurance plan or a car rental reservation.

Seriously, every little annoying thing in life is going to be automated, so you get to free yourself to do the things you really want to do.

[u8080]

>things you really want to do

Like making music or drawing?

[piva00]

> Yah I definitely want to be fulfilled by having to pick a health insurance plan or a car rental reservation.

Where did I not include "health insurance plan" as a chore, exactly? Do not strawman what I said, please.

My point was towards this:

> Or book my vacation for me, knowing I like a mediterranean vibe and Bistecco Florentine.

A lot of the fun I have with my vacation is doing the research, learning the place, finding about spots that aren't the beaten path to check out (including restaurants, cheap eats, bars, etc.). Automating that would remove the fun of figuring out what I want to see at the places I'm going to, it's a braindead way of vacationing, completely understand it's the case for some people but it's not at all fulfilling to me to have that designed by some digital parrot.

[signatoremo]

You will still be able to do all of that, will you not? But if one would rather not to, they have the option.

If I’ve been to Paris a hundreds times, I don’t need to do any research, just want the same hotel or a comparable hotel in a comparable neighborhood to where I stayed in my last visit. That I can delegate to AI.

[nlitened]

> It's next level society. Like, immediately, I want it to order me some groceries based on what it sees in my fridge and what I cook. And to remind me to change my air filters. Or book my vacation for me, knowing I like a mediterranean vibe and Bistecco Florentine.

This thing already exists though, it’s called a personal assistant. And since you’re already not willing to spend $400 a month on getting one, likely reveals that this is not really a thing that you really need in your life. It’s a made-up preference, I am afraid.

[diggan]

Just like ACs, fridges, washing machines, internet and a bunch of other things are "made-up preferences" too. In the end, does it really matter why or how the preference appears? If people are willing to have a personal assistant for 100/month, rather than 400/month, what difference does it make to you? Because you didn't get it at 400/month, you shouldn't want to get it at any price, because you don't really need it?

[vFunct]

Yah it doesn't exist, since personal assistants do not exist.

The US labor force is at 4.5% unemployment. That's nowhere near enough for everyone to have personal assistants.

[nlitened]

A single personal assistant can remind to change AC filters and order food to dozens of people. Also, you can have a personal assistant from another country, since we’re talking about tasks like “order food”, “book vacation”, and “remind”

[vFunct]

And the cost of finding an agent outweighs the savings of hiring one.

[nlitened]

If that were true, wouldn’t there be major agencies/marketplaces, where it would be easy to find vetted assistants? These things tried to happen, they went nowhere, because it turned out that almost nobody wants an assistant.

I think, if someone is not organized enough to create a recurring reminder for themselves, they are probably also not organized enough to instruct someone else to remind about it, and to follow up upon the reminder.

[bryancoxwell]

Surely a personal assistant costs more than $400/month?

[nlitened]

That’s 20 remote work hours at $20/hr for a person sitting comfortably in another country, booking vacations for you, ordering you food via Uber Eats, and reminding you to wash your AC filters every quarter. I think it’s reasonable, even on a higher end for lower-income countries.

[worldsayshi]

Buy and sell agent, no confirmation needed. Here's my bank account. What can go wrong?

I'm not categorically against the development, but I want to categorically confirm bank transactions.

[vFunct]

What will likely happen is you give it a separate sandbox bank/credit card account with a small budget, and it transacts from that. I doubt it'll buy a house for you anytime soon.

Honestly you wouldn't believe how good these models are if you haven't tried it. They really are amazing.

[dangelov]

Given some of the caveats I mentioned towards the end of the article I'd be a bit wary putting too much trust in LLMs for this use case at this stage. But the field is moving so fast that I don't doubt it will soon be less error prone than a human doing it.

[glowiefedposter]

demonic.

[flakeoil]

/s