Comment by treis
1 day ago
>The construction worker it replaces isn't going to start managing a team of robots construction robots
Some of them will. You've slashed construction labor cost to 5% of what it was before. With that and a similar reduction throughout the supply chain means we're going to start building a lot more stuff.
Even if we start building a lot more stuff, you still don't need those construction workers. You have a GC to manage the whole project, aided by an AI who's handling scheduling/operations/logistics. You have a detailed plan to build against.
So why do you need former construction workers to manage the robots? Why can't the GC and management AI run the whole thing?
Maybe there's some scenario where you still need something like one licensed person from each skilled trade to be responsible for the robots employing those trades. But there's no way you need everyone who worked on building sites managing robots, no matter how much construction you're doing.
That's pretty far away from where we're at. If things do get that far it's not going to be a problem. Eventually the robots will murder us in our sleep and our worries will be over.
For which poor unemployed people who just got laid off due to AI are the Robots building house for? More abstractly, for whom are we creating are these productivity miracles and surplus for. Does a rich person suddenly need a million iPhones for himself and himself alone?
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There's not going to be much additional poor unemployed people. They're going to get different jobs.
Doing what, exactly?
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Labor costs are not the limiting factor on production.
If they were suddenly cut to near zero, a lot of projects that were previous uneconomical become viable.
"Becoming viable" does not mean "automatically put into execution". You still need to take overall demand in account.
Consider this: if demand was not a factor, anyone living in a moderately wealthy country would be practicing labor arbitrage and sending money to poorer places. Ask yourself why this doesn't happen.
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What is?
In theory breakeven demand, but ecosystens are basically economies, so termites are break even demand, and that's not good news.
Demand and primary resources go way higher on the list.
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