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Comment by rkuodys | Hacker News Reader

Isn't that the story of <any> technology? When the coffee machines first came to be, Barista was definitely a better option. However, through the evolution, in many cases today machine does better job than barista.

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Better analogy would be that even though the coffee machine is still worse, we choose it because it's more convenient (at least I think that's the case).

My drip coffee maker makes me coffee that I find more enjoyable than stuff from a barista at a fraction of the price.

It's cheaper. That's, like, the only reason ever the mass market adopts any alternative.

And usually better, too.

Anecdotal, but the best machine will never be able to do something as good as the best human in most circumstances. That is because, unlike machines, humans have passions and character that subtly imbues itself in the end result. This, of course, isn't limited to coffee, but to anything a machine could do that isn't strictly tied to exercises in logic (for example, computers will always be better than humans at most games because they can be analysed logically and acted upon)

> for example, computers will always be better than humans at most games because they can be analysed logically and acted upon

This made me wonder how we can imbue some of the the reasoning in your post to it. A game that values human ingenuity

I feel like, despite not being my (and presumably most of HNs, given the general demographics) cup of tea, sports are largely that. The players are skilled but also uniquely themselves. The world cup wouldn't be nearly as interesting if it were just unthinking robots fighting to see who can run around and kick things the best

But the point is you will never have the best barista all the time l. Unless you are 0.0001 % of population who can afford personal barista to follow you anywhere, you accept whoever is serving coffe at the corner shop. And for a machine to be better that <average> barista is not a tall order. So it makes good coffee accessible for many

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