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Comment by devgutt | Hacker News Reader

I always thought that Homejoy were planning to automate as much as possible, if not everything, related to cleaning services using robotics and stuff, and that humans were only a temporary measure while developing technology. Sadly no, they were optimizing for human cleaning. They could have kept them as contractors while support them providing free education and resources to reallocation in the work force. This would be much better to society instead of organizing the modern slavery.

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Just because you might not like cleaning, it's a stretch to imagine that casual cleaners don't like their job.

Saying someone on by low wage job is 'modern slavery' is pretty obtuse when real life actual slavery is happening right now in parts of the world.

yes, maybe I am wrong, but in my opinion, there isn't a SINGLE person in the world that would like to make a living cleaning the mess of others.

>Saying someone on by low wage job is 'modern slavery' is pretty obtuse when real life actual slavery is happening right now in parts of the world.

This is exactly the reason I used "modern slavery".

I've done a lot of cleaning and as a job I generally liked it. You have a set task, you see the result, and when you are done you are done. It can be quite rewarding. The pay sucked, but that's far from slavery.

Interesting. Although I could afford it, I never allowed myself to hire cleaners because I refused to explore a person to clean my own mess. My mess, my responsibility, I clean it. It's interesting to know that people would willingly work with cleaning even if they have other options.

"Modern slavery" does not include "low paid menial work".

Modern spavery exists in several different forms: actual slavery, bonded labour, and forced labour.

Employment compliant with US law is unlikely to meet those definitions. (Although children working in US tobacco farms is legal and problematic).

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/apr/03/mo...

http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/what_is_mod...

Maybe you meant "wage slave"? There's probably better terms, becase as soon as you mention "slave" people will think you mean slavery, and "wage slaves" are not in any sense slaves.

Do you think they called "slavery" in the past?

Yes, that's exactly what they called it.

I don't understand what you mean?

What I mean is what is not considered slavery now, could be reconsidered as so in the future. I believe so in this case.

And yet my mom runs a cleaning business and quite enjoys the satisfaction she gets from the work.

So yes: you're wrong.

Just because no single person owns you, still doesn't mean you are working for basic subsistence in slavery-like conditions. And others knowing that can, and will abuse you because of that.

Sure. Does any work that complies with current US law meet that bar though?

Children working on tobacco farms maybe do count. (And even if they're not slaves it's still a big problem).

But to suggest that domestic cleaners working for Holejoy os pretty insulting to the people who are working in illegal slave like conditions in the US.

We'll have automated cars waaay before a robot learns to make my bed, clean the edges around my bookshelves, and separate my whites from my colors

Separating whites from coloreds [1] should be achievable now. There's a robot that can take a pair of socks and determine if one is inside out and if so invert it. That involves more subtle distinction of colors than merely separating whites from coloreds should.

Here's a video of the robot in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKUaVzf3Oqw

It's a little bit NSFW.

Haha. I don't know why, but I find that robot equal parts hilarious and adorable

Realistically, robot house-cleaners that can compete with a human both in terms of ability and cost are decades away. Not something you can build a business on today.

I'm talking about different robots for different tasks. We already use a lot of them. In terms of costs, this is the catch, these robots could be delivered on-demand in the houses. This could be the startup. Even if the "perfect" technology were decades away, this is a good mission, with a good transient plan.

Yes, Homejoy could have developed and provided to its cleaners tools to make the cleaning faster (for example: something that would be to a toilet brush what a hoover is to a mop - I have no idea how to develop such a thing), making the overall cleaning cheaper - it would take less time, and cleaners charge per hour.

it would also change the way furniture and house equipment are made to facilitate cleaning.

Developing technology for cleaning is a lot to ask for a social software startup...

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