Counterproductive Robots

Those folks on Lizard’s Lair are such good fun to watch. I swear, the producers just go out and try to recruit the worst people possible for television, which thus makes them the best people for television, and they’re being held to a strict 80/20 rule. As in, they have to recruit that many in terms of percentages, just so they can say that they’ve got a few people who aren’t totally useless. Usually, one per episode. That’s mostly how it is, to stop us from getting too suspicious I bet.

And it works, but today I think they might have stepped over some sort of line, because a robot that does the work of a conveyancer, estate agent and buyers advocate is just…well, it has to be seen to be believed.

The buyers advocate thing is, of course, one of the things you would have great problems automating. It’s just not a job people need to be done without any human feeling, you know? Conveyancing is quite technical, and while real estate agents do a lot of things, you could MAYBE load a few of them into some software. But buyers advocates? You sit down and have coffee with them to discuss your needs. It’s like the dream job if you like talking to people and you’re also into property, and you can NOT give that job to a robot. No one would tell their housing secrets to a robot. No one is going to trust a robot to give them solid recommendations and search through property to find the right place for you. The property advocate companies in Melbourne portray themselves as having human expertise as their main draw.

Also, don’t have the robot talking like an offensive jive stereotype. Just…just don’t. The property advocate thing is best left to people, and that is best left to the annals of history. Really, really deep in the annals of history.