[bitwize]

Unions probably have a lot to do with this in the United States.

I seem to recall footage of a building-erecting robot in Japan. Basically it was a frame that went up and down on four pillars, with an armature that could move in two dimensions on the frame, almost like a "UFO catcher" or crane game machine.

[krschultz]

Unions haven't really impacted the residential home building market. I don't think onsite automation will help much. Most of the easily automated steps (foundation laying, framing, roofing, sheetrocking) are actually outsourced by the general contractor to specialized subcontractors. They can frame out a house in a week easily and are very efficient. It's simply not worth all the effort of programming computer manufacturing instructions and setting up a machine to automate the construction of a house becuase it doesn't take long. The painful/expensive/time consuming part of building a house is the 'finishing'. Hanging windows, installing the kitchen, doing plumbing, etc. Making a machine do all of that just isn't worth it.

(Some offsite automation like bringing in pre built roof supports or foundation forms makes sense, but that is already happening.)

On the commercial side, unions are heavily entrenched. You absolutely can not build a sky scraper without heavy involvement from the metal workers trade union, the electricians union, etc. There is a lot of waste there.

I could see automation on the commercial side, but not really on the residential side.

Also working against you - construction workers are cheap right now. The unemployement is due to lack of demand, not the cost of building. We can't even fill already built buildings.

[gigawhat]

I am Bender. Please insert girder.