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Where are the robotic bricklayers?

constructionphysics.substack.com

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Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#181

Post by dylan604 »

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 totally see/hear your position, and mostly feel the same way.

Devil's advocate asks, what about the skill of the devs that can automate that kind of stuff? The types of things that might be learned in building articulating robotically controlled apendages to pick tomatoes without crushing them or the entire plants, the skill of a robot to cook the perfect burger to the perfect temp, etc. It would be impressive.

Sending people to the moon and building atomic weapons brought us some very cool and useful unintended things. So who knows what could come from some other boondoggle type of projects?

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#182

Post by [deleted] »

colordrops wrote: post #62
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…

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…

[deleted]

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#183

Post by cratermoon »

Nasrudith wrote: post #157
cratermoon wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robots that can identify and pick up things in the environment haven't materially improved since the 60s. What has changed is how factories and warehouses are built, so that the 'environment' and the 'things' are strictly constrained to enable robotic arms to grab and move them. But let one thing get a little out of place, or worse, let a human get between an industrial robot and the thing it's trying to pick up and.…

That simply isn't true - the machines of the past were pretty much blind but safety interlocks are able to detect an approach. The reason for the constraints are efficency in manufacturing is preferrably reducing the process to simple repetitive actions for improved throughput and reliability.

> simple repetitive actions

Exactly, and those actions are able to be simple and repetitive because the machines don't have to try to identify objects in the environment, they just reach X meters, open their grappler Y centimeters, close it until it reaches Z Pascals of pressure, move, repeat.

No real "AI" required, just programmed to handle expected conditions. But get just a little bit outside the pre-programmed constraints and... https://www.engadget.com/2018-12-06-amazon-workers-hospitali...

As a result, the humans are now forced to accommodate the failings of the machines. https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/8346932/amazon-factory-workers...

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#184

Post by gilbetron »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #175
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…

Code has been getting automated since basically day one of programming. The funny thing about automation in programming - it has always opened up more doors - and led to more employment in programming. We are so far from anything that resembles real automated coding - that coding automation should continue to be celebrated by engineers for a long time. GitHub Co-Pilot and VS Code aren't going to replace you - they're…

> Code has been getting automated since basically day one of programming.

Comments like these make me wonder if you actually code. Code is automation, that's what it does. You don't write the same code twice. Ever.

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#185

Post by dylan604 »

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…

I have contempt for the price of devs. They sit in cushy chairs in climate controlled rooms eating cushy meals. Skilled construction people hone their craft over time just as a dev does, only in a not so comfy chair nor comfy climate controlled room in a workplace that has all sorts of situations that might seriously harm/mame/kill the worker or fellow coworkers.

It goes both ways

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#186

Post by throwaways885 »

dylan604 wrote: post #179
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…

Is a computer iterating through every possible chess move "skill" or just being able to compute the best odds?

Is this any different from what a human is doing?

I would also say that the approaches taken by something like AlphaGo are more interesting, too. Because unlike chess the solution space for Go is too large to simply look at all possible moves.

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#187

Post by shadowgovt »

avgDev wrote: post #54
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Cost of lumber, cost of land, cost of equipment, cost of permits, cost of inspections. It really isn't a box for $300k. You can buy a mobile home for what $60k? Permit process isn't broken.....this is a view often held by incompetent contractors. I have performed various jobs like building retaining walls, bathrooms, electrical, decks and never had an issue as long as my work was up to code. Permits can protect a hom…

Permit process also protects the community.

I was paying for a house to be built by a contractor who, it turns out, screwed up the permitting process and didn't do a hydrological survey of the erosion pattern on the land. The town yanked his permit to build.

I was grumpy, but when I drove by I could see clearly what the problem was: he hadn't planned for drainage at all, and the new construction and alteration of the terrain had already caused rainwater to start pooling at the base of my future neighbor's foundation. If he'd been allowed to continue unhindered, he would basically have guaranteed my neighbor's property would have been destroyed in 5 years.

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#188

Post by dylan604 »

throwaways885 wrote: post #186
dylan604 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is a computer iterating through every possible chess move "skill" or just being able to compute the best odds?

Is this any different from what a human is doing? I would also say that the approaches taken by something like AlphaGo are more interesting, too. Because unlike chess the solution space for Go is too large to simply look at all possible moves.

a computer iterating through things isn't skill per se, TO ME, because it's just what it was built to do. No more skill involved than a machine cutting wood. A human doing this is a skill as they have honed that ability with hours upon hours of studying and reading and playing etc. A computer can do this from the first time the devs get the bugs worked out.

Is that the same?

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#189

Post by ALittleLight »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #175
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…

Code has been getting automated since basically day one of programming. The funny thing about automation in programming - it has always opened up more doors - and led to more employment in programming. We are so far from anything that resembles real automated coding - that coding automation should continue to be celebrated by engineers for a long time. GitHub Co-Pilot and VS Code aren't going to replace you - they're…

Automated tools will lower the difficulty of coding to the point where it'll be easy to pick up and be massively productive. Developers will be replaced by domain experts becoming productive developers easily with automated tools.

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#190

Post by mrshadowgoose »

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 can only speak for myself, but I can assure you that on my end it's not contempt in the least bit. Rather, it's excitement at the hope of an amazing future; one in which people who work do so because they choose to, and not because they have to. A future in which we can celebrate life, creativity, hobbies, friends and family, without having to toil away the majority of our waking life to obtain the means of survival.

One can absolutely admire the skill of a bricklayer, while celebrating the eventual fact that bricklayers will not be forced to perform that labor if they don't want to. Those are not mutually exclusive things.

"We haven't automated driving"

One can, today, fly to Phoenix Arizona, download the Waymo app, and summon a self-driving vehicle. Although it would be disingenuous to claim that self-driving is a completely solved problem for ALL use cases, it absolutely is "good enough" for very many of them, and will be scaled out faster than you expect.

"but many more have not and most likely never will be."

Unless there's some yet-to-be-discovered supernatural process at-work inside the human brain, this is just plain false. The human brain is an incredibly complicated machine, and nothing more. It's only a matter of time until we understand, or in the worst case, simulate it with sheer computational power.

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