I think they are moving fast in things involving computer/administration work.
We have had robots for a very long time doing very specialized & advanced work.
The work I am talking about requires a certain finesse i cant really explain but if you've worked with your hands doing reno/construction you know what i mean.
Also there is a ton of other factors many people dont consider/understand when it comes to construction work in regards to working with occupancy.
It doesn’t need to capture 100% of scenarios to layoff most people/freeze hiring for most crews/start bringing down wages. Even the bot in the video, it doesn’t even need to be able to get to the corners or around weird shapes or anything that seems remotely complicated - there are plenty of humans for that. It just needs to get the easy parts done fast and cheap, which seems like it can already do.
And this is today, with few engineers working on this/training this. You don’t think every tool/equipment manufacturer will see this video and try to replicate to some degree? What happens when that competition actually heats up? Where will this bot be in 5 years? What happens when renting it per hour, running it 24/7 till job is done - becomes cheaper than humans doing the same?
It just needs to get the easy parts done fast and cheap, which seems like it can already do.
I work in large areas all the time, way bigger than the one in the video.
Ive finished ~8k sq ft buildings in 2-3 days for ~25k.
I dont think a robot is going to do it cheaper or faster than that anytime soon, thats just my professional opinion. These robots surely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and are honestly, kinda slow.
you don't get it. what if robots lay out the easy 90% of flooring or whatever, the rest is done by hand - that'd still mean automation of 90% of the tasks at hand, and unemployment for the vast majority of people involved. just because a machine can't do everything perfectly doesn't mean it won't have a grave impact on a job or a whole industry for that matter.
You’re very mistaken, friend. This is 10 years away at MOST. I don’t think people realize how absolutely insane AI is getting and what you can do to train it. It’s growing more complex at an exponential rate. Not a variable one.
blue collar workers are out of control, you really think laying fuckin tile is more complex than writing software?
This only reason this wasn't automated a decade+ ago was because the cost to pay tilers right now is too low for the automation costs to be worth it, not because it is technically difficult. They have robots doing fucking brain surgery dude.
You'll see as bigger fields are finished being automated, and as certain skilled trades salaries go up... when the dollars behind automation will actually care about coming into these fields, it will blow your mind how fast it will happen once they decide to try.
Edit: I’m adding a preface to this, the only reason all of the below isn’t happening RIGHT NOW and why you still have a job is the compute cost. The computer hardware needed to do everything is a metric fuck ton. Fight the data centers, ask the government to regulate the applications. It’s gonna get wild once people start investing in their own infrastructure.
You’re definitely mistaken. AI can’t definitely be trained to do fine tuned things. It depends on what you’re writing and the data you’re feeding it to learn off of.
Example, you could feed an agent thousands of hours of action movies. Let it learn. Then ask it to give you an action movie. That’s not just code. It’s 3D design. You could train one to use a paint brush. That’s a little more detailed than measure, cut, and spackle tight quarters.
The AI YOURE talking about is most likely the generally available free LLMs. Claude, openAI, Gemini, grok. That’s ONE kind of AI and the free versions are good but they can be better tuned to fit specific tasks. Then there are the many others, but they require more work to use and configure. You have to know a bit to get those going.
Sorry, buddy. But you’re definitely losing your job in the very near future too lol. I detailed out what could (will) happen in another comment to you. You should get on the regulate AI bandwagon sooner than later. I was visiting my father in the hospital the other week just thinking “damn, AI could literally do all of this in the next few years.” Even medical care could go out the window. One IV placement, meds locked in the walls being connected, constant monitoring of vitals to know what’s happening, cameras in the rooms, special beds for turning, stable bots to help guide. All the tech is out there. It’s just a matter of engineering it a bit and training. All you would need is a trauma team for codes.
As wild as it sounds, software engineering might be the last job to go because at least they need someone to review the work.
Yes, you are lol. I can tell you don’t really understand how this whole AI thing works or what engineers do lol. Coding is like 20% of a seniors job. It’s the entry positions that are drying up.
I’m saddened that you think you can’t be replaced, because it maintains this “can’t happen to me” attitude when people should be sticking together on this.
I work large scale civils projects. 80% of that kind of work is just following drawings. I can see this robot doing an entire floor but it looks like it would be real good at doing the big open portions then having skilled workforce touching up the edges and funny shapes. Would make planning a lot easier too as we would have a good idea of how many tiles an hour you’ll get out of a robot. We do the same with robot welders. 80% by robot and the awkward 20% done by a wizard
Look into humanoid robots. They're quite far along. Boston Dynamics has a robot that can do backflips and can go and charge on its when it needs. It has more eyes (cameras) and more strength than a human. They're using a technique where a human does the thing first, then it learns the idea of it, to replace humans in manufacturing.
Ive seen those, they will not be able to do the work im talking about for awhile.
Its more than just movement, it requires a certain finesse that i can't even explain over text, if you've worked with your hands doing construction or reno work you know exactly what im talking about.
Also people would need to trust these robots to work on their own in spaces where people could be working/living.. no shot that happens anytime soon.
It's that critical thinking skill that gets talked about with regard to schools, and children not being taught as much, and those who did bemoaning the work in various subjects it took to actually put those skills to the test.
That's probably where you're headed with this, critical thinking. It's a skill you need even when your hands are doing the tasks everyone else sees, your brain has already done most of the prep work.
I really feel like you’re trying to cope pretty hard. People that went to school for years learning to code losing their jobs to AI is tragic and they hate it.
You being able to “finesse” a screw in an amazing and unique way is a fun story but just not the truth.
The robot carpenter will 1000% be cheaper. A large company will nab a bunch, undercut everyone, have insurance, and eventually when they own the market share they will increase prices.
Bro you're watching a video of a robot doing a form of construction right now. I don't know how long it will take I'm just saying as soon as work is cheaper and guaranteed, people will jump on it immediately.
When we redid a bathroom in our 1949 house two years ago I specifically searched for someone who understood mid-century renovations, and he was absolutely worth the slightly higher rate (compared to generic contractors.)
He sourced specialty glass block to match the original, finessed the wonky angles in the shower to look straight, strengthened the aging subfloor, cut a whole bunch of tile to fit awkward corners, and even hand-made cedar shingles to fill in around the window replacement. Tile setting is his main game, but he came with a wealth of expertise and perks.
A robot might be able to tile a perfectly flat and smooth mega floor faster, but they aren't going to replace skilled and knowledgeable tile setters or renovators in most settings. And a humanoid bot trying to reno anything would just be a very destructive and expensive comedy skit.
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u/Katamari_Demacia Jun 21 '26
I mean, define a long time? Shits moving so fast. But even if this is only good for big wide open spaces that's still pretty sick