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Am I the only one who doesn't want a virtual assistant? I just struggle to understand this goal we apparently are all aiming for I want to be an active player

Am I the only one who doesn't want a virtual assistant? I just struggle to understand this goal we apparently are all aiming for I want to be an active player in my own life. I want to do things even if there's some friction. All I can imagine is that future from WallE where everything is so easy no one tries or does anything at all

podgietaru 25d ago
I'm just not that annoyed by having to search for a flight, or train, or bus. Or make plans. Or find a restaurant. I'm not annoyed enough by these trivial tasks to want to outsource them. I don't want to ask Siri to book me a restaurant, when the alternative is a quick google search.
- flkiwi 25d ago
  It's helps to remember that most of the folks pushing this are ambitious but fundamentally lazy.
  - brookst 25d ago
    What an odd claim. Is it possible they have families, aging relatives to care for, health issues or other reasons that time is precious and “spend an hour correlating amazing restaurants with their available bookings against my crazy schedule” is not a good solution? IMO the greatest failure of the HN-style tech community is complete lack of empathy, or even awareness, for people whose lives have different shapes.
  - kthinckley 25d ago
    frankly, this is just a lazy and ignorant pov
brookst 25d ago
Can’t say you’re the only one but I certainly want an assistant. I’ve been putting off some dental work for a year or more because I have an implant that’s come lose, and the two dentists I saw about it said they’d have to remove the crown, send pictures to some lab that might be able to identify the manufacturer (or maybe not), maybe get the right tooling, maybe have to replace the entire thing (thousands of dollars, removing and resetting a post in my jaw), etc etc. all because I didn’t know the manufacturer of an implant I got 20 years ago. Claude cowork was able to understand the problem, interview me, find dental insurance paperwork in my email, identify the prosthedontist used, find that that office had closed years ago, find where the practitioner moved to, their new practice, and get me a number to call. Within a couple of ours I had the manufacturer, procedure notes, and X-rays from the installation. Is that WALL-E style laziness? Maybe. But I’m good with it, as I have line of sight to solving an annoying problem that seemed insurmountable.

podgietaru 25d ago

I'm just not that annoyed by having to search for a flight, or train, or bus. Or make plans. Or find a restaurant. I'm not annoyed enough by these trivial tasks to want to outsource them. I don't want to ask Siri to book me a restaurant, when the alternative is a quick google search.

flkiwi 25d ago
It's helps to remember that most of the folks pushing this are ambitious but fundamentally lazy.
- brookst 25d ago
  What an odd claim. Is it possible they have families, aging relatives to care for, health issues or other reasons that time is precious and “spend an hour correlating amazing restaurants with their available bookings against my crazy schedule” is not a good solution? IMO the greatest failure of the HN-style tech community is complete lack of empathy, or even awareness, for people whose lives have different shapes.
- kthinckley 25d ago
  frankly, this is just a lazy and ignorant pov

brookst 25d ago

Can’t say you’re the only one but I certainly want an assistant. I’ve been putting off some dental work for a year or more because I have an implant that’s come lose, and the two dentists I saw about it said they’d have to remove the crown, send pictures to some lab that might be able to identify the manufacturer (or maybe not), maybe get the right tooling, maybe have to replace the entire thing (thousands of dollars, removing and resetting a post in my jaw), etc etc. all because I didn’t know the manufacturer of an implant I got 20 years ago. Claude cowork was able to understand the problem, interview me, find dental insurance paperwork in my email, identify the prosthedontist used, find that that office had closed years ago, find where the practitioner moved to, their new practice, and get me a number to call. Within a couple of ours I had the manufacturer, procedure notes, and X-rays from the installation. Is that WALL-E style laziness? Maybe. But I’m good with it, as I have line of sight to solving an annoying problem that seemed insurmountable.