Watch a swarm of flying robotic drones construct a tiny building

No problem. These things can do precision landing so there's no reason they couldn't juice themselves back up in shifts.

Correct about the swarm -- indeed it's not a multiagent problem -- but perhaps a bit unfair regarding the "dumb machine" part.

This appears to be a "multi-body" problem (rather than a "multi-agent") problem: that is, there is likely one primary decision-maker which dictates the construction task ordering, likely computed via a partial-order multi-body planner. That's part 1 of the AI.

But there's another part that's equally interesting. The multi-body planner produces a series of construction steps. Each step is ordered with regard to certain steps, unordered with regard to other steps (these can be done in any order but not simultaneously), and explicitly declared parallel with yet other steps (they can be done simultaneously). The quad-roters grab the steps and perform them in parallel when possible, and at least form a queue otherwise. Last, the quad-rotors have to perform these steps without hitting one another, so there's a significant real-time multi-body path-planning problem involved.

Multi-body planning, scheduling, and plan monitoring is nontrivial and should not be so lightly dismissed.

Robotic construction will eventually take over the construction industry. Especially once robotic transportation becomes possible.

There are many complex processes being performed at construction sites. Many steps take highly optimized machines to perform robotically but that a single human can do just by changing tools.

Because of these processes, automating the entire construction process would be very expensive to do right at the site.

All parts would have be modularized so they could be snapped together. Or robots will have to be able to change tools. Or parts will have to be moved from robot to robot, with as much work being done before parts are actually brought to the site.

Either way, it will be interesting to see how it works out.

This is awesome! It's sort of like a less precise large-scale 3D printer or MineCraft. I'm sure I'm not the only person who thinks this is certainly the beginning of automated construction. It works for assembly lines. We may finally be getting to the point where the same process will work in more mobile volatile environments.

24/7 robots are fine, but helicopters are _loud_, particularly those with the lifting power to do construction work. We're currently seeing small proof-of-concept machines lifting small, light parts, but the machines needed to lift useful construction parts will need to be many times larger and heavier, and if they're going to run for any serious amount of time (as would be needed to be useful) then they either need very much bigger batteries or large fuel tanks, which again means extra weight which means more power, more noise and more energy to lift the extra weight of the energy. It's not impossible but it's a vicious, not virtuous, circle.

I relatively regularly have the local police helicopter overhead and it's definitely loud enough to keep people awake, sometimes to wake you up in the first place. A whole fleet of these withing 1/4 mile of you will be loud, noticeably louder than a usual construction crew, and I'm still concerned about the neighbours complaining about the risk of this fleet of robot helicopters crashing into each other or dropping parts. Really, I think this is a very cool tech but a mad application of it that I really can't ever see working.