• @Carnelian
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    66 days ago

    Respectfully, there’s no universe in which any type of AI could possibly benefit a load of laundry in any way. I genuinely pity anyone who falls for such a ridiculous and obvious scam

    • macniel
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      86 days ago

      I would say that when the intelligent washing machine has access to sensors (weight, hardness of water, types of laundry detergents) and actuators (releasing the right amount of detergents, water, spin to the barrel) it could make an optimal washing of laundry.

      • synae[he/him]
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        46 days ago

        I would counter that non-optimal washing by doing what I ask via primitive buttons and dials is perfectly acceptable, and actually preferable

        • @[email protected]
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          36 days ago

          Good for you. You might also be interested in this tool called a “washtub” that lets you do everything exactly how you want, without needing to trust a computer to interpret the positions of fancy dials and figure out how much to agitate your socks.

      • @Carnelian
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        26 days ago

        No, it couldn’t. That’s pure tech bro logic without any basis whatsoever in reality.

        The machines already have these sensors. There’s simply nothing for “intelligence” to contribute to the process. It’s not enough for you to point to the presence of various sensors and claim it could do something with them when in reality this is already a solved problem. Additionally, the hypothetical AI-equipped machine itself will also be worse, using significantly more energy and being less reliable.

        I say hypothetical, because the specific LG machine we’re talking about doesn’t even actually have any AI component. Yes I am aware of the difference between generative and analytical models; it has neither. Just normal sensors and algorithms that all modern washing machines have had for years. They threw the “AI” language on it to market it to people. You know, like a scam. Because the delightful thing about “AI” is you don’t need to provide any benefit to your marks, their imagination will do the work for you

        • @[email protected]
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          26 days ago

          I love it when people angrily declare that something AI researchers figured out in the 60s can’t be AI because it involves algorithms.

          Using an algorithm to take a set of continuous input variables and map them to a set of continuous output variables in a way that maximizes result quality is an AI algorithm, even if it’s using a precomputed lookup table.

          AI has been a field since the 1950s. Not every technique for measuring the environment and acting on it needs to be some advanced deep learning model for it to be a product of AI research.

          • @[email protected]
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            5 days ago

            Then they may as well say they did it “with computers.”
            Oh, but that’s not sexy, is it.

            • @[email protected]
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              15 days ago

              I mean, no, it isn’t. It is a marketing decision after all.
              That doesn’t mean that type of thing isn’t the product of AI research.

        • macniel
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          16 days ago

          so that specific LG machine can detect the water hardness, what fabrics are used in the clothes it should launder, what detergents are available?

          • @Carnelian
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            16 days ago

            Do you have an example of an AI system being deployed to do these things or is it, as I said, pure hypothetical tech bro logic?

            But yeah it basically squirts some water in at the top, then analyzes the water that reaches the bottom (and how much) to infer the fabric types. That same information is then considered when dispensing detergent and fabric softener. Simple sensors and tables

              • @Carnelian
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                16 days ago

                Yeah it doesn’t seem like a bad washer, just don’t appreciate them jumping on the AI bandwagon. It’s manipulative

    • @[email protected]
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      26 days ago

      You can’t see a benefit to a washing machine that can wash clothes without you needing to figure out how much soap to add or how many rinse cycles it needs?

      I genuinely pity anyone so influenced by marketing that they can’t look at what a feature actually does before deciding they hate it.

      • @Carnelian
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        16 days ago

        Those features are literally unrelated to AI, just so you know. It’s comparing sensor outputs to a table. Like all modern laundry machines. The inclusion of “AI” on the label is purely to take advantage of people like you who instantly believe whatever they’re told, even of it’s as outlandish as “your laundry has been optimized” lol

        • @[email protected]
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          26 days ago

          Yeah, I know how it works, and I also know how different types of AI work.

          It’s a field from the 50s concerned with making systems that perceive their environment and change how they execute their tasks based on those perceptions to maximize the fulfillment of their task.

          Yes, all modern laundry machines utilize AI techniques involving interpolation of sensor readings into a lookup table to pick wash parameters more intelligently.

          You’ve let sci-fi notions of what AI is get you mad at a marketing department for realizing that we’re back to being able to label AI stuff correctly.

          • @Carnelian
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            06 days ago

            The fact that you’ve been reduced to blabbering about such mundane things in the style of “the ghosts in pac-man technically had AI” tells us everything we need to know here. Have fun arguing with me in the shower about whether or not current trends are just a result of marketing executives finally being liberated to appropriately label the AI they’ve been using for 70 years

              • @Carnelian
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                05 days ago

                Thanks for the kind words, have fun “leveraging machine learning techniques” to “figure out” how much detergent you need