[matt_heimer]

I'm not sure that the physical embodiment needs to be robotic in nature. I'm a physically abled home owner and need to repair my hvac or plumbing. Instead of paying for someone in the trades to come out and do the work for me why can't I just put on a pair of augmented reality glasses and have the AGI use me? The camera and my voice inputs should allow the AGI to diagnose the issue, order needed parts, and then instruct me using visual overlays and audio prompts on completing the repair.

[mechagodzilla]

Even in that very optimistic vision of the future:

* You don't have the tools or supplies on hand (just let that pipe keep flooding your basement until an amazon delivery arrives!), and many of them are expensive and sufficiently specialized that a homeowner might only need them 2-3 times in a lifetime.

* You don't have any training for using the tools if you had them.

* You might not be physically capable of doing the task even if you had the tools and new how to use them, you might easily injure yourself (or others) or make the problem worse, etc.

Think of it like youtube - for most household repair tasks, you can probably already find a youtube video of someone explaining how to do the fix. Do roofers and plumbers and electricians still exist, even though a youtube video can show anyone how to do most of those tasks? AGI glasses seem like they might make less of an impact for most homeowners than youtube has.

[matt_heimer]

That's not optimism, its pessimism. Some wealth company building an app to sell to DIYers that puts trade people out of work all in order to make money seems unlikely to you?

* Every time I've encountered a home owner with a burst pipe or flooding scenario their immediate problem was lack of knowledge on they different ways to shut off the water supply. And if the problem is something as simple as lack of a wrench then you could always go get one faster than an emergency plumber could get onsite.

* The AGI glasses don't need to solve 100% of problems to be disruptive to the skilled trades. No reason they can't refer you to a human specialist. An (outsourced) human could join your AR glasses session (for a cost) and see if they can provide more instruction to both you and the AGI or if referral to a local human was needed. A Google supplied augmented reality AGI could charge users for specialized assistants AND then charge human service providers for higher placement in the referral listing.

* Local tool rental is a common thing, no reason hardware stores couldn't function as a same day fulfilment instead of amazon. And a lot of tools are cheaper to buy even if they only get used once than paying for a single service call.

* Re: tool training - I'm sure the AGI could recommend approaches to avoid tooling where possible. For example recommending shark bite connectors instead of brazing pipes, etc. But yeah, some people just won't have the dexterity to use a hammer. The issue of being able to plaster or finish drywall nicely that vidarh pointed out in another post is also a good example. It might be a boon to the local AR/AGI enhanced handman.

* Agree on roofers and electricians... where the possibility of self harm is high these scenarios are too risky without basic training. Maybe you'd have to get a DIY electricity safety license to unlock that ability in the AGI. Or maybe only apprentice electricians can use the electrical AGI, the result would still be less need for master electricians.

* Re: YouTube - As a DIY homeowner I love youtube but having to wade through hundreds of videos until I find the one video that applies to my scenario is exhausting. An AGI would already be trained on much of that knowledge. It'd lower the barrier. Again it doesn't eliminate the need for the trades but it does disrupt them further than youtube already has.

Think of it more like adding a self-checkout line to the trades. It helps in a lot of scenarios, the casher job role doesn't go away but a lot of people are unemployed or making less money all of a sudden.

[mechagodzilla]

I just think the impact of such a device would be on the order of "a marginally better youtube for DIYers" rather than "put all the trade workers out of business." I'm not even convinced a lot of the more recent AI work will result in a net productivity gain, vs the productivity drag associated with increased spam and other AI-generated garbage. Will ChatGPT-like software manage to displace more workers than, say, mail-merge running on a 1980s computer? I'm not sure I'd take that bet. Self-checkout lines are a good analogy, in that they've been around for over 20 years now, and they're still a somewhat marginal productivity improvement over regular cashiers.

[pixl97]

>why can't I just put on a pair of augmented reality glasses and have the AGI use me?

[meme time]

Oh god, oh fuck, we're going full Manna.

[/meme time]

https://marshallbrain.com/manna1

For those have have not read Manna, this is a huge portion of the premise of the story that AI helmets turn us into automatons that allow the AI to further automate our jobs until we are all unemployed and destitute.

[matt_heimer]

Thanks - I should have worded that better. I'd like an AGI that helped to augment my abilities, not control me. But its still an AGI replacing a trade person, having a master plumber standing over my shoulder was more of what I was thinking of. The AGI having the knowledge is a form of control I guess but it seems acceptable to me.

I hadn't seen manna before, thanks for sharing. There are some good thoughts there. The bit about girls liking Manna because it doesn't hit on them was excellent. The dad character had some good points too.

The examples do seem a bit over the top (likely to drive home the premise). But honestly the verbosity seemed excellent for a new hire scenario. As long as it dynamically scaled down the verbosity of the instructions to match what was needed by each individual user would it really be awful if the managers got replaced?

It is a fine line, the tech being used to add to our knowledge vs making us dumb robots. If it could be kept to teaching, certain types of management, and gamified checklists it wouldn't be the downfall of the human race. However I could easily see it getting to the point where customers are talking to the AGI mounted on your head instead of you and that is scary.

[pixl97]

Honestly Manna is a story about AI way before it's time, because it captures that most of the battle we see now, it isn't going to be about AI at all. But corporate datamining in order to dehumanize you.

I mean, this is OpenAI today "By using our product you are training our product to be you, please insert $$$ to avoid this scenario"

[citizenpaul]

>physically abled home owner

I think you nailed part of the problem here. For no less that 30% of the population the first step in the googles would be. Wear googles and go to gym for at least 6 months, along with diet guidance. "You are about to eat a snickers bar, this will delay your air conditioner repair by 16hrs"

I once tried to show a white collar friend how to spray for bugs himself, he needed a break after hand pumping the chemical sprayer. Im pretty sure in the end he just paid someone anyway.

[vidarh]

Having just done a half-assed plastering job, I will answer that with "because a lot trades needs practiced skills, not just the knowledge".

Sure, it'll be one more thing that eats into bits and pieces of what we need trained labour for, but it won't eliminate it.

[EricMausler]

I think the first roadblock to this method is the grey area for liability. I feel like a lot of the value to qualifying people for trade work is less about getting the work done and more about maintaining a chain of accountability. The AR tech can absolutely be uses, and I think is currently used in some places, but the person using it will likely still need to be an employee of a company willing to accept 100% of the risk. I wonder what we'd have to do to get around that

Some examples:

Something goes wrong even though you did what it told you to do, but it didn't account for something specific to your situation, but the fine print says you were supposed to provide info on any non-standard circumstances, but you aren't qualified to know what needs to be said.

Or it asks you to do something surprisingly difficult that you don't know is outside your limit until you're in the thick of it - like holding something down with a lot of pressure and your hand slips causing damage or injury.

Or you do the whole thing and everything seems fine, and then later it breaks and causes damage/injury, the cause is linked back to your work so now fault needs to be assigned/split between you and the AI.

[idopmstuff]

I guess at this point it's just a matter of the semantics of what it means to say AGI is doing the work. My feeling is that it's not accurate to say it's doing the work if there's still a layer of human meat sack (not you personally!) interpreting and taking the actual action.

[1970-01-01]

That sounds more expensive than paying a tradesman, except you're on the hook for buying or renting all the tools, and when something needs four or more hands, can you email support and have them upload an assistant AGI to carry around the heavy materials?