Thread

1. fnordpiglet · 1790014340 · focus · HN ↗

   I ask this in every thread on muse / OpenClaw / whatever platform. I’ve never gotten a clear answer beyond “yeah me too”:

   Does anyone have any meaningful use cases that have actually improved your life in some measurable way?

   I’ve tried hard and beyond filling out some tedious forms in about the same time and energy as just doing it myself, I’ve not personally. I’ve tried hard. So I figure it’s probably my lack of creativity given the prevalence of fans. But every time I ask, I get no meaningful responses. So it makes me wonder if all the fans are just product managers on those products?

   1. mariusae · 1790014774 · focus · HN ↗

      For myself, it's been super helpful in at least two ways:

      1) Staying on top of my kid's school obligations, homework, etc. School Learning Management Systems are a hot mess, and I use agents to consolidate and collate, to keep track of the homework that has been done, what needs to be done, and even pre-grade homework to give feedback (most of the work is done on digital platforms too). It's been immensely time saving for these kinds of things. 2) Multiple instances of watching things passively: hotel room prices, availability of tickets, finding the best place to sell things online. In general things that require a lot of browsing, collating, and watching. These are the kinds of things that specialized software products could do as well, but with an agent they are just a prompt away, and you get exactly what you want. (More or less.)

      1. Freak_NL · 1790015620 · focus · HN ↗

         Keeping track of your kids' homework is your concern? Doesn't it only become your concern, briefly, when the school contacts you about your kid not getting their homework done?

         1. fnordpiglet · 1790016357 · focus · HN ↗

            As a parent people from prior generations do not get the current situation. I actually agree that this is a useful use of the agentic work tools - and it’s the only case I mentioned above I’ve used it for successfully, if not saving of time.

            Homework isn’t assigned in class any more. It’s posted on dozens of inscrutable websites in weird UX’s that are impossible for any single human to understand. Children are mystified, parents confused, teachers at their wits end.

            A few times a week children miss some website or queue from some system, teachers can’t get things to share properly, this needs tending, they need to photograph this and upload that to this place as well as that but not the other one.

            It’s truly remarkably astounding. I have serious doubts frontier models can navigate it either honestly. But this is in fact where I see the most chance of using these tools.

            “Computers at school” is the worst idea ever, and no one who hasn’t experienced the clusterfuck of middle school in 2026 can understand it. It makes the world of the movie Brazil seem utopian.

            1. fnordpiglet · 1790048077 · focus · HN ↗

               Btw I did this Muse, giving it the ability to use its cred vault to log into her school information system and read through all the crap and other websites and collate the homework’s and their due dates, adding to my child’s calendar when they’re due and a reminder the day before with a link to the calendar. I had model the workflow formally (I do this with all LLMs for procedures) and set it up to run daily. We shall see!

               Overall it was not bad. The cred vault is useful. But I’m not giving meta any information that I wouldn’t otherwise be fine with disseminating and I feel the burden the school puts on us vs the information loss is worth the trade.

               Thanks! First meaningful use of an OpenClaw like system.

         2. pavel_lishin · 1790016519 · focus · HN ↗

            I'm not the person you're asking, but in general, I would also stay on top of my child's obligations - homework, chores, etc. I don't want the first sign of trouble to be a call from a teacher, or the complete absence of clean clothes for them to wear in the morning.

            You don't teach children responsibility by removing yourself completely from that equation

            1. mkjs · 1790017633 · focus · HN ↗

               You equally don't teach them responsibility by always being there as the backstop though. I think missing a couple of homeworks is quite a low-stakes thing that can teach them a lot about responsibility, failure, and how to recover from it.

               A lot of kids now seem to go into adulthood having never been allowed to fail, and it can really mess them up the first time it inevitably happens.

               1. pavel_lishin · 1790042268 · focus · HN ↗

                  Oh, sure. I'm not saying I'd remind her about every piece of homework. But I want to know if she's starting to not do it.

                  1. Freak_NL · 1790071264 · focus · HN ↗

                     There is quite a large gap between checking in with your kid and having an AI analyse their homework and assignments and raising an alarm if anything appears to slip. The latter is a solid WHUP-WHUP-WHUP-WHUP-WHUP on the helicopter parent spectrum.

                     Missing homework once or twice is part of life and a really good life lesson with low risk besides.

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