AI firm HUMXN will pay for your plumber to train robots
AI firm HUMXN offers free plumbing and HVAC service in Minnesota to train robots
HUMXN is subsidizing plumbing, electrical, HVAC, and cleaning appointments in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Miami. Technicians wear capture gear that records how they diagnose leaks, trace faults, and choose tools, turning real service calls into training data for AI and robotics. Homeowners get free service, contractors get paid, and HUMXN sells the datasets to physical-AI developers.
Robots need to understand how skilled people interact with the physical world. Home-service technicians perform millions of highly technical tasks every day. We are creating a way for homeowners and service companies to benefit financially from the value of that expertise.
- jawns
There's obviously a strong incentive for homeowners to participate: they don't have to pay for a service that is often valued at hundreds of dollars.
But what is the incentive for contractors to participate, and how does it overcome the enormous disincentive of "You are training your replacement"?
My guess is that truly skilled contractors in these trades are not hurting for work. So I doubt they're going to be swayed by just a few more extra jobs added to their docket.
Less skilled contractors who are desperate for work might be taken in, but then the quality of their output is likely to be worse, and the value of that training data is likely to be low.
My guess is that people in skilled trades who are used to working with their hands are going to be even more skeptical than white-collar folks about an AI revolution, and more guarded against change in that direction.
- FLeXMurphy
I'm seeing a lot of surprised people on this thread. Have a look at the more recent YC batches of startups. Count all the non-AI ones, and subtract from total. And don't pretend to not know what the end game of something like YC is here. And YC is not the only one.
One company doesn't need to do everything. But 100-1000 smaller companies, each taking on a piece of every-day work that people are paid to do and replacing it with AI, is definitely doable and can pay very well if deployed at scale. It doesn't have to be perfect all the time either - just cheap, fast, and good enough. As it always has been.
You didn't really think they are training vision models so they can just drive your car around, or that they are training robots to perform physical tasks so they can just use them in factories, did you?
- maitland
the gen ai image on this page has a "shut off" label for the base of the human plumber's neck. To say nothing of the amusing drainage schematics (water flows up?)...
- rickydroll
I'm a little surprised that no one has mentioned the Isaac Asimov's story "Profession."
https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/luminist/SF/AST/AST_1957_...
- momojo
How is this on the front page? Its not a YC company. They have no internet presence besides a Claude website. 0 followers on X/twitter. No public mentions of funding or votes-of-trust. No names to vouch for them.
Can OP or founders comment?