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Comment by notmindthegap | Hacker News Reader

AI babysitter for infants to supplement – not replace – parents. Captures audio / biometrics and responds to the baby with targeted music, positive affirmations, cooing, etc, to promote positive emotional state. Also notifies parents of states that require their intervention, like hunger, soiled diaper, abnormal vitals, inconsolability. Parents can take a break, watch a movie, entertain friends, etc, with the comfort of knowing their baby is being intelligently monitored. Existing baby monitors are way more noise than signal.

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That's 100% black mirror, not white mirror. Babies being raised by machines is dystopian as hell.

Baby isn't being raised by a machine. How is this different from a crib mobile (for entertainment) + video monitor?

If it's the same as a crib mobile, then what benefit does it provide?

More effective

The effectiveness comes from exploiting the baby's primal recognition of the mother, which is why it's dystopian. Additionally, by "effective" you mean "the baby spends less time crying," which means that the parents are spending less time with their baby. So parental time is being replaced by an AI. I think it's fair to call that "being raised by AI."

I hope the "Robot nanny optimizes for minimal crytime" argument wasn't written by a parent. What a cold angle.

There's some point where the robot is realistic enough that it's functionally no different than a nanny. I agree it would be dystopian as hell if the kid was just raised by the robot, but giving the parents a bit more sleep and an opportunity to have a date night once a week would help them be way better parents.

As an extreme case, some parents get so stressed and chronically sleep deprived that they get frustrated at their babies for continually crying and shake them, leading to permanent brain damage and even death.[0] To be clear, these parents don't mean to hurt their child but they're not operating coherently anymore. A robot that can give parents a breather here and there would significantly improve quality of care for soooo many babies.

[0] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/shaken-baby-s...

Already a thing. The machines are called smartphone/YT/TT/IG, etc

Batteries die and the parents are left without a clue how their child actually operates. They've been playing real life tamagotchi while their newborn evolves into an alien.

Funny, babies are also way more noise than signal >.<

"You won't always have a calculator in your pocket"

I think most new parents have semi-wished for, like, a life-size cutout of themselves attached to a Roomba that could roll into their nursery at 3am when the baby randomly wakes and make vaguely reassuring noises to soothe them back to sleep. I know I have. But I'm not sure it's wise to enable or encourage this level of parental disengagement.

Anyway, what I really wanted to share is "The Robot and the Baby", by John McCarthy (yeah, the same one): http://jmc.stanford.edu/articles/robotandbaby/robotandbaby.p...

Selling it as "free up the parents to do other things" is not going to fly. But enhancing the baby's experience or learning is fine.

An AI-powered rocker that plays soothing music till the baby sleeps would be great. People already use rockers, it's very accepted.

I would never have trusted a computer to be in charge of my infants. Even trusting another human adult is pretty tough already.

The Control Problem is scary enough already. What's the Paperclip Galaxy equivalent for a robot nanny?

While that's decent, I would wish for something more like, "A boy and his dog" type AI. Having an "invisible friend" that you can speak with and see, who knows everything, is a perfect confidant, who grows with you through life until you are ready to set them down, possibly as a rite of passage into adulthood.

And even then, you could keep in in your computer or phone, be able to talk to it and discuss problems with an intelligence that knows your life almost as closely as you do, but not carrying it with you all of the time.

IDK, I think that would be pretty cool even if the idea of robot nanny scares the pants off of some people.

no thank you

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