Yoav Goldberg: home robots snapping to "standard" behavior fails everyday users too

yoavgo · x · 2026-08-28

A discussion on whether home-robot models defaulting to "standard" behavior from training data is desirable. @gailw argues that for everyday household tasks (watering plants, making pancakes), snapping to standard behavior is exactly what the product needs — useless for power users but fit for its goal. Yoav Goldberg pushes back, citing a case where a user demonstrated feeding a cat half a can and the model called it "wastage" insisting the can be emptied — showing everyday users also have non-standard needs (watering amounts, object placement, cooking preferences) where defaulting to the norm fails.

Related event: Scholars debate whether home robots defaulting to standard behavior is a bug or feature(2 posts)→

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