Where are the robotic bricklayers? • Hacker News Board

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#121

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 11:33 PM UTC

adamdusty wrote: post #109

cgrealy wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We haven't automated driving Yeah, we pretty much have... it just hasn't been widely adopted yet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjztvddhZmI And honestly, from a business perspective, most people really don't care about the skills ordinary people have. Look at the wine industry for example. Top shelf wine is hand-picked, for exactly the reasons you outline, and some people are willing to pay top dollar for that en…

We have not automated driving. Phoenix is step one but there are parts of the world that get weather other than sunshine. Yeah those cars are cool, but the roads in Phoenix are better than any other major city in the US, the weather is binary, sun or rain, the city is modern, and the stop lights communicate with audi (I think its audi) cars and you can see when it's going to turn green on the instrument display. Phoe…

[deleted]

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#122

Post by dendrite9 » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 11:33 PM UTC

minikites wrote: post #77

coldacid wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not destroying your body lifting heavy weights for 50 years seems like something people might like. And that's why the exoskeleton system mentioned in passing in the article is more popular with construction labourers than any of these robots.

Better tools amplify human skills instead of attempting to replace them.

This always has seemed like a good goal to have. There is some work where automation makes sense, but I don't think replacing is always the right goal. https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/17/reverse-centaur/#reverse-...

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#123

Post by frosted-flakes » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 11:34 PM UTC

scotty79 wrote: post #56

aaron695 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This should be required reading for probably anyone who votes. This quote is my take away - "Almost every advancement in construction is small enough for a man to carry"

Not quite. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plattenbau

The article mentions those. There's a reason they are not used much outside of parking garages.

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#124

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 11:35 PM UTC

spyckie2 wrote: post #31

The value of work is not in the work done; it's in the decisions being made. It's the ability to handle edge cases, to work your way through ambiguity, to "unstuck" a stuck situation, and to resolve tricky unforeseen issues. If you build a robot that only handles the main workflow and can't handle any of the exceptions, you're not automating anything; you're building a convenience tool. Basically, you're removing som…

> This is both economically unviable and largely unpopular.

And yet, you can make billions of dollars on it.

This is literally the modus operandi of modern tech companies like Google and Amazon. Automate the main workflow, silently ignore exceptions, and if anyone complains about problems (or your non-existent customer support), just wave your hands in the air and mumble something about "scale being hard".

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#125

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 11:35 PM UTC

spideymans wrote: post #68

egh wrote: post #28

The great contempt that computer people have for the skills that every human brings to the jobs that the do is always on display here. We haven't automated driving; we haven't automated picking tomatoes; we haven't automated bricklaying; we can't automate cooking a fucking hamburger. But they are completely convinced that it's just around the corner, because they are full of contempt for the skill and intelligence of…

When you have a hammer, everything look like a nail. Technology is our hammer.

Technology is a generalisation of a hammer.

Technology is the domain of means to ends. It's literally how things are done, and includes such factors as skill, training, technique, organisation, and logistics.

As such, your comment is self-negating.

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#126

Post by munk-a » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 11:38 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #89

cgrealy wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We haven't automated driving Yeah, we pretty much have... it just hasn't been widely adopted yet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjztvddhZmI And honestly, from a business perspective, most people really don't care about the skills ordinary people have. Look at the wine industry for example. Top shelf wine is hand-picked, for exactly the reasons you outline, and some people are willing to pay top dollar for that en…

> We absolutely can automate cooking a fucking hamburger, and as soon as it's cheaper than the cheapest labour, McDonald's, Burger King, etc, WILL automate cooking a fucking hamburger. Curiously, McDonald's is probably as close as you can get to automating burgers and fries without crossing that final step of removing human labor entirely. It's not really cooking anymore, it's process chemistry[0], with some final as…

This is the pattern you'll see repeated if you go looking for jobs that have been "automated away" - they get the dumb bits removed. No longer does the mail room call your desk to inform you that a package has arrived - scanning a barcode does that. The jobs in those sectors slowly shrink down (until eventually they just get rolled into the gigantic umbrella of responsibility that is IT) but the work never completely disappears.

Once upon a time I'm sure some dude had to constantly monitor the temperature of the cellar that holds the wine casks and occasionally call into town for a block of ice to keep things cool. Now we have refrigeration - and that mind-numbingly tedious portion of running a winery can now be conveniently avoided (except for the occasional maintenance) so you can concentrate on more important things.

Eventually it might be that McDonalds automates it's POS and menu to such a degree that for every ten franchises there's just one dude in a car that drives around responding to error codes and, ideally, the people who worked there will find something more creative and fulfilling to do with their lives. I don't hold those people with contempt - I feel like their skills (and everybody has skills) are being underutilized.

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#127

Post by lapsed_pacifist » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 11:38 PM UTC

yarg wrote: post #8

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.

Print a house out of what material? Will that material stand up to sub freezing and very high temperatures? Can it withstand a temperature variable between indoor and outdoor temps? Does it have lateral strength against wind and snow? Does it deteriorate in sunlight? Will it last more than 10 years? Is it flammable?

I can walk down my street in Northern New England and see brick buildings that are over 100 years old in a harsh climate, and that were reasonably affordable when they were built. The shapes and contours are usable and attractive to most people. They are able to be remodeled and repaired using very basic technology.

There are reasons that Dymaxion Homes weren't popular.

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#128

Post by sudosysgen » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 11:38 PM UTC

willbw wrote: post #87

colordrops wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having respect for the skills of a worker and also believing that they are possible to automate are not mutually exclusive. It's no different from people saying the same thing about chess and chess players, or go and go players, before the problem was solved. And it's not just blue collar workers that are a target of this idea. We are already starting to see automated programming moving out of the research lab and in…

I think it is different from people saying we couldn't automate chess or go. The difference is between a purely data domain, chess or go, where it can both be translated 1-1 into a computer simulation of the game AND the inputs are data. I realise that you could define everything as data - laying a brick, you take the inputs of where to position the brick, etc. However I think we can make the distinction between ches…

A big part of ML in robotics is actually making nearly 1:1 simulations of the world and the actuators.

It's fairly sucessful. We can simulate for example driving a car really well.

Simulating human behaviour is harder, but simulating brick laying is not that hard, we have the technology to do so already.

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#129

Post by notJim » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 11:41 PM UTC

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #34

egh wrote: post #28

The great contempt that computer people have for the skills that every human brings to the jobs that the do is always on display here. We haven't automated driving; we haven't automated picking tomatoes; we haven't automated bricklaying; we can't automate cooking a fucking hamburger. But they are completely convinced that it's just around the corner, because they are full of contempt for the skill and intelligence of…

I don't have contempt for the skills; I have great respect for the skills. I have contempt for the prices of things. If construction costs are cheaper than ever (are they really?) why can't I buy a box to live in without spending $300,000? Why is the permits process nationally broken? And despite being skilled, that doesn't mean they're informed: why do contractors not know what they're supposed to do? Why do the peo…

As far as renovations, I think the simple reality is that renovating requires a lot of very skilled labor, and skilled labor is not cheap. Good contractors where I live are booked months and months out. The weird thing is if you look the salary data, these jobs don't even pay very well. Electricians and plumbers both have average salaries of $56k, compared to ~$100k for software engineers according to BLS data.

If these numbers are representative, it's no wonder it's hard to hire a contractor. The pay sucks and it's hard work that requires a lot of training. Overall I don't understand how the economics of this industry work such that doing anything is expensive as hell, yet the workers are not paid very well.

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#130

Post by dragonsky67 » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 11:41 PM UTC

The question I would have around automated building construction is "why use bricks?".

Bricks are great for humans to build with, they are just the right size and weight for the human hand to manipulate and place. They are not optimised for machine manipulation.

I would guess that if you wanted to automate construction you would start by making things like walls on an automated production line, then ship the largest practical piece to the construction site. Once there I'm guessing some automated cranes could move them into location far more easily than thousands of slightly randomly sized pieces of hard clay.

Work out what problem you are trying to solve. Do you want cheap construction? then why choose a material that requires thousands of operations just to build a wall regardless of if it is a human or machine doing the building. There are far more efficient building materials used every day... Just see how fast commercial buildings can be constructed and you can be sure that they are optimised both for speed of construction as well as (hopefully) energy efficiency and ease of maintance after construction.

The problem seems to be people have a emotional idea of what a dream house is, an idea that is firmly stuck in the red brick house of 1970's sitcoms.