Yesterday I had a piece in Slate that talks about robot butlers, human butlers, and the work that butlers actually do— and how different it is from the work that robot butlers claim to be able to automate. Today I read about Alfred, a Boston area startup that is a “service layer on the shared economy that manages your routine across multiple on-demand and local services.” Let’s pretend that means something.

Apparently, it sends people (who is calls Alfreds) around to your house once a week to pick up your dry-cleaning, unpack your Dollar Shave Club box, etc. 

But once again, while it invokes the word “butler” to describe these people, the service provides but a fraction of what butlers do. It’s a classic example of what Jaron Lanier talked about: the first step to replacing people with machines is to redefine the work people do, in order to make it looks more algorithmic.

Still, it’s kind of amazing to hear someone say a “service layer on the shared economy that manages your routine across multiple on-demand and local services,” and have it work as a magical spell that unlocks money.