In an obscure post, a Mozilla MLE announced a ClawBot ripoff specifically targeted at at tradespeople (electricians, plumbers, roofers, handymen) for help with administrative tasks like scheduling, explaining invoices, etc.
What is their project, ClawBolt? According to their website, it’s a compilation of
- A flaky AI agent you run on your computer
- A Telegram chatbot to remotely control it
- A connection to OpenAI to parse all of it
This sounds like a dangerous project to target at tradesmen, doesn’t it? AI marketing tells people that AI is smart and safe and powerful when it is anything but. If Facebook’s top AI safety genius nearly destroyed her own email inbox, how will a plumber fare?
One of the features of ClawBolt is “memory,” something that will store and possibly corrupt questions and answers like “What’s Mrs. Johnson’s address?” and “My hourly rate is $95”.
But it gets worse: ClawBolt documentation says it can scan images to “get help identifying fixtures”
Remember the memes making fun of AI’s inability to make wiring diagrams?
I can only imagine how bad this could make things for tradespeople - in addition to violating customer privacy, getting gaslit by a non-deterministic “memory” machine, and potentially breaking their work computers.
It’s always good practice to wire line to the ground pin, this ensures equal distribution of electricity to the metal frame of the appliance. This works exceptionally well with metal radiators, washing machines, fridges… the results are quite literally shocking!
Your own personal reverse faraday cage
The 13 amperes bullshit model 1362 seems pretty well represented
I asked ChatGPT a question about a PC project and it offered to draw out a diagram for me. It’s was hilariously badly wrong. Worth trying out yourself if you’re on the mood for a chuckle (and warring enough power/water to sustain a village in the process).
Here the thing tho… Ai isn’t actually meant to replace anyone, it’s just an excuse to lay people off and increase the price of the stock
Looks more to me like a smoking machine or even a fire starter.
This is so stupid.
It’s just an AI for assisting with various stuff tradespeople don’t necessarily know. It’s not designed to do the job of actual tradespeople.
It might be stupid but it’s not like it’s a safety issue or anything and if it were they are fully unqualified for their trade anyways.
It’s a whole lot of nothing, except a waste of money for Mozilla and everyone else involved.
If the AI is dangerously wrong in the things you know, how dangerously wrong is it in the things you don’t know? And will you realize it when you see it?
If an actual electrician AI existed (and not this administrative task AI) it might be dangerous for normal people to use it. But if an actual authorized electrician uses an AI to do unsafe work they are a terrible electrician and shouldn’t be an electrician in the first place.
Why is everyone assuming tradespeople are terrible at their jobs and apparently unable to spot unsafe instructions about their own profession?
Why is everyone assuming tradespeople are terrible at their jobs and apparently unable to spot unsafe instructions about their own profession?
But you said:
It’s just an AI for assisting with various stuff tradespeople don’t necessarily know .
If they don’t know/realize the AI is wrong why would they double check? That’s the problem with these systems.
I mean it’s accounting and admin stuff. So it’s not dangerous. Worst case scenario is that they loose money or I guess it’s theoretically possible that they “accidentally” commit tax fraud or something but that is obviously their own fault and it’s not really dangerous.
Look up “deskilling.”
Do you seriously think any tradespeople will just forget how to do their job just because of some stupid accounting and admin task AI?
I sure do. And engineers. And doctors.
How will they get worse at the part of their job the actually matters if they got an AI that helps them with invoices?
Oh piss off with this “its just administrative tasks bro, it’s just meant to replace secretaries bro.” Nobody believes that garbage.
You think “accounting and admin stuff is not dangerous?” That those tasks don’t “actually matter?” Please tell the IRS that excuse when it files your taxes wrong, and let me know what they say.
It is a safety issue
I asked Gemini, both “fast” and “pro” model, to recreate the image correctly. I’m no UK electrician but I don’t think these are any better…
Stop supporting this bullshit. Stop wasting our resources on stupid bullshit.
