I think you'll be surprised about that. I'm not in the robotics field (though perhaps I should be) but at an earlier stage in life I spent several years on remodelling and building houses - as in swinging a hammer, not singing deeds and checks.
Repair/remodeling is challenging because you need (approximate) knowledge of construction techniques from across a 150 year timespan, buildings settle and change shape over time, and generally owners don't usually want the building completely gutted and rebuilt from scratch. But it's not that hard. New construction is relatively straightforward. The biggest challenges for construction robots will be handling dust/debris (25% of construction work is cleaning things up) and maintaining health and safety (of the robots themselves; self-preservation is a skill that has to be learned).
That said I don't think you'll see this with the current generation of humanoid robots. A lot of the design assumptions seem almost comically wrong to me.
Factory workers maybe but all processes have to be redesigned with design for robotic automation in mind. That will displace a lot of people and they will naturally go into the trades since the skills translate more easily so while I agree they wont be replaced there may be downward pricing pressure.
I hear China is doing a lot of this already to stave off their upcoming demographic collapse. I haven't seen raw details or videos though other than demonstration stuff (anyone have anything to share?)
“Every time you ask for another dollar in wages, a thousand more robots start looking more practical.” -Roger B. Smith (GM CEO in the 1980s).
Factories have been automating for decades. Last factory tour I took they said in 1950 this plant had over 2000 employees working, now (2019) about 200. Then he pointed to the laser cutter which alone replaced 150 workers with just 2. This factory is not considered very automated by modern standards either.
Yes I am very familiar with auto automation. They are amazing. Tesla went so overboard that maybe the ROI isn't even there for some processes (installing wheels on a car by industrial robot? They repeated the mistakes GM made in the 70s and 80s with being too early and robots being ripped out and left in the parking lots.
Already products are designed for robotic automation: reduce fasteners, make a single piece do more, make sure a blind one armed dumb person can put the thing together(thats basically the industrial single arm robots you have in factories today).
Still maybe this time is different...but to be fair I put the caveat that you must design the product from the ground up for this new kind of potential automation. (I was talking about the new bipedal vision robots not the old school industrial robot arms) What that looks like? Well the Chinese are probably cooking something up for sure and hopefully somewhere in the US its happening as well.
I think you'll be surprised about that. I'm not in the robotics field (though perhaps I should be) but at an earlier stage in life I spent several years on remodelling and building houses - as in swinging a hammer, not singing deeds and checks.
Repair/remodeling is challenging because you need (approximate) knowledge of construction techniques from across a 150 year timespan, buildings settle and change shape over time, and generally owners don't usually want the building completely gutted and rebuilt from scratch. But it's not that hard. New construction is relatively straightforward. The biggest challenges for construction robots will be handling dust/debris (25% of construction work is cleaning things up) and maintaining health and safety (of the robots themselves; self-preservation is a skill that has to be learned).
That said I don't think you'll see this with the current generation of humanoid robots. A lot of the design assumptions seem almost comically wrong to me.
Factory workers maybe but all processes have to be redesigned with design for robotic automation in mind. That will displace a lot of people and they will naturally go into the trades since the skills translate more easily so while I agree they wont be replaced there may be downward pricing pressure.
I hear China is doing a lot of this already to stave off their upcoming demographic collapse. I haven't seen raw details or videos though other than demonstration stuff (anyone have anything to share?)
“Every time you ask for another dollar in wages, a thousand more robots start looking more practical.” -Roger B. Smith (GM CEO in the 1980s).
Factories have been automating for decades. Last factory tour I took they said in 1950 this plant had over 2000 employees working, now (2019) about 200. Then he pointed to the laser cutter which alone replaced 150 workers with just 2. This factory is not considered very automated by modern standards either.
Yes I am very familiar with auto automation. They are amazing. Tesla went so overboard that maybe the ROI isn't even there for some processes (installing wheels on a car by industrial robot? They repeated the mistakes GM made in the 70s and 80s with being too early and robots being ripped out and left in the parking lots.
Already products are designed for robotic automation: reduce fasteners, make a single piece do more, make sure a blind one armed dumb person can put the thing together(thats basically the industrial single arm robots you have in factories today).
Still maybe this time is different...but to be fair I put the caveat that you must design the product from the ground up for this new kind of potential automation. (I was talking about the new bipedal vision robots not the old school industrial robot arms) What that looks like? Well the Chinese are probably cooking something up for sure and hopefully somewhere in the US its happening as well.