[cj]

How does it compare to hiring a human?

I pay $200 every 2 weeks to have a 3000 sq ft house cleaned.

That's about $5200 a year to fully clean a house. And it's a human, so they can also tidy up, clean out the refrigerator, do my laundry, water my plants, etc.

[scotty79]

You'd have to pay me this much to let a human inside my house to do that.

[cj]

Where I live, you typically share house cleaners with your neighbors or family members.

My parents, aunt/uncle, grandparents, and one of my neighbors uses the same house cleaner.

If she stole from me, I’d immediately tell my family and she would lose basically all of her clients.

That makes it easier for me to trust her.

(It works similarly in NYC apartment buildings - a single cleaner often services many people in the same building, so they have a reputation to uphold)

I would never use random online cleaning services.

[MostlyStable]

My understanding from parents and friends who have a cleaning service...it pretty much depends on a certain baseline level of cleanliness. Most cleaning services don't (and likely wouldn't be able to provide) basic "pick up around the house". They will come into a house that is mostly picked up and sweep, dust, mop, vacuum, etc. but they won't come into a toddler house and put everything away.

I'm sure that there are services that do this, but I very much doubt they are the $400 per month services you are talking about. Robots may not be able to do that level of task at all right now, but they will get there.

And of course, that's not even thinking about all the cleaning tasks that would be avoided in between the every-other-week visits.

Having my surfaces be somewhat cleaner every two weeks is worth ~nothing to me. It's by far the easiest and least unpleasant part of cleaning a house. Having a robot that will pick up the detritus of everyday life and put it away, pick up and clean dishes, etc. and do so every single day would be worth an enormous amount of money.

I have no idea how long it will take for robots to get to that point, but whichever company cracks that level first is going to make a lot of money.

[slfnflctd]

This is the part of the thread I was looking for.

Obviously the whole question is how a robot cleaner compares to a human.

As you point out, the potential for robots far outperforms humans in multiple categories (although clearly not all by any stretch).

I'd say pricing around that of a lower end new car - or nice used one - seems about right to me. In terms of justifying the price, another thing I haven't seen discussed much is the competitive advantage this can provide. If you're spending less time cleaning, that's more time for other things.

[stef25]

> I'm sure that there are services that do this, but I very much doubt they are the $400 per month services you are talking about

Costs me 160 / month for 4hrs / week.

[sciencejerk]

Toddlers should learn to pick up their own toys...? Unless we're grooming them for a life of pampered self-absorbed entitlement?

[MostlyStable]

This is one of those "tell me you don't have kids without telling me" situations. The process of teaching a kid to be a responsible human is long and arduous. If you expect a 2 and a half year old to successfully be picking up their toys, well, I don't know what to tell you. Go spend some time in a daycare, I guess.

And of course, that's completely ignoring the fact that I also would like to not have to pick up my shit if I could buy a robot that would do it. Yes, I can. And in fact I currently do...mostly. But I'm not happy about it and if there was an even quasi reasonable amount of money I could pay that would mean I would never have to do it again, I 100% would do so.

And if you can honestly say that you wouldn't...well I hope you are enjoying your life in the monastery.

[sethammons]

Teaching kids responsibility and autonomy cones in right after keeping them healthy.

2 year olds do a bad job. They are 2. Yet it is valuable for them to learn to manage themselves. They love helping put silverware away from the washing machine. Kids _need_ to help as part of their development.

[sciencejerk]

Eh, I actually do have kids, and like other North American children they usually don't pick up their toys. When things get messy enough, the "toy sheriff" comes into town and sets things straight. He's got a hat and a badge and a thick mean southern accent. Toys that aren't put away get locked in "jail" for indefinite time.

I won't lie, I don't do this often, and I end up picking up plenty of toys, and would welcome robot assistance, but it still seems wasteful and privileged to use advanced tech in this way

[stevep98]

Totally agree with you on ‘putting stuff away’. Much of the mental effort is trying to organize stuff so it takes space efficiently, and be easy to find it when I need it. If a robot put it away, I don’t really care where. I can just ask it where it is.

[qsera]

>but they will get there.

May be they will. But do you think this because of the LLMs? I don't think LLMs will help. Because it can only generate text.