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There's no need for robotic brick layers - it's requires significantly less dexterity to just 3D print a house, and it allows for shapes and contours that are simply impossible to construct from bricks.
Current low hanging fruit is long, straight walls. So a few customers will bite, using the human masons (who are paid more) as the high quality, judgement based service. The easy sections will be done by the machine.
Over time the machine maker uses their foothold to encroach on the more juicy work. As they collect data some ML will creep in and solve some of the harder brick laying issues. Maybe it will figure out about the mortar too.
Eventually the machine will be doing the whole job, and you can use an app to build yourself a heart-shaped wall just for fun.
Or perhaps there's just no economic incentive, and more inexperienced masons will do the easy bits for the foreseeable.
There's no need for robotic brick layers - it's requires significantly less dexterity to just 3D print a house, and it allows for shapes and contours that are simply impossible to construct from bricks.
It's not that existing jobs will always be automated, we'll come up with tools that completely automate several layers of work.
It's a different view than all current jobs will be automated. Automation can be used to remove several verticals and improve efficiency by magnitudes in the process.
There's no need for robotic brick layers - it's requires significantly less dexterity to just 3D print a house, and it allows for shapes and contours that are simply impossible to construct from bricks.
People are very good at bricklaying, and are paid a reasonable rate by the hour. No one has made a machine that can beat that feature set.
edit: more great features of human brickies that robots are terrible at: very small working volume; very small and agile footprint; safe for other humans to work near; half-day built-in power supply.
As mentioned in the article. There are brick laying machines for roads that are really interesting. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cGhzzcgfHNc
Seems like it's another mini-mills waiting to happen, with perhaps ML as the required technological innovation. Current low hanging fruit is long, straight walls. So a few customers will bite, using the human masons (who are paid more) as the high quality, judgement based service. The easy sections will be done by the machine. Over time the machine maker uses their foothold to encroach on the more juicy work. As they…
Wire camera example: https://youtu.be/j0K3XUqZI9w?t=187