[robbrown451]

I'm having trouble understanding what they want to "upskill" those people to do.

What skills won't be replaced? The only ones I can think of either have a large physical component, or are only doable by a tiny fraction of the current workforce.

As for the ones with a physical component (plumbers being the most cited), the cognitive parts of the job (the "skilled" part of skilled labor) can be replaced while having the person just following directions demonstrated onscreen for them. And of course, the robots aren't far behind, since the main hard part of making a capable robot is the AI part.

[tintor]

'main hard part of making a capable robot is the AI part'

Robots are far behind.

Mechanical hands with human equivalent performance is as hard as the AI part.

Strong, fast, durable, tough, touch and temp sensitive, dexterous, light, water-proof, energy efficient, non-overheating.

Muscles and tendons in human hands and forearms self-heal and grow stronger with more use.

Mechanical tendons stretch and break. Small motors have plenty of issues of their own.

[AndrewKemendo]

And your claim is that those will never be solved?

As a professional robotics engineer I can tell you for a fact they are coming soon.

[WastedCucumber]

There's nothing in that post claiming those problems will never be solved. I understand the claim as "the hardware conponent of robotics needs more work and this will take some time, compared to AI capabilities/software" Or soemthing like that.

Maybe you could clarify what your experience on the matter is, how the state of th art looks to you, and most of all what timelines you imagine?

[AndrewKemendo]

Just look up “fine dexterous manipulation with pressure feedback” to see the SOTA for dexterous manipulation

There’s at least a half dozen products, two recently from Unitree and Allegro announced.

Rodney Brooks wrote about the challenges - but frankly it was a submarine piece for his work

https://rodneybrooks.com/why-todays-humanoids-wont-learn-dex...

[DaveZale]

you are talking high cost emvironments, at least for the moment?

Come on... show me a robot that can run a farm that grows organic produce at an affordable price. It is the lowest wage job out there. Automating it would make prices far out of range for the 99% - but the billionaires could care less?

[Jensson]

You need an AI to do that, affordable robots are already here but the intelligence is not.

[robbrown451]

For most things they don't need to be "human equivalent." I'd be willing to be the current crop of robots we're seeing could do most tasks like vacuuming, cooking, picking up clutter, folding laundry and putting it aways, making beds, touch up painting, gardening etc. It seems to be getting better very fast. And if mechanical tendons break, you replace them. Big deal. You don't even need a person to do the repair.

[visarga]

I don't think "replaced" is a good word here.. augmented and expanded. With AI we are expanding our activities, users expect more, competition forces companies to do more.

But AI can't be held liable for its actions, that is one role. It has no direct access to the context it is working in, so it needs humans as a bridge. In the end AI produce outcomes in the same local context, which is for the user. So from intent to guidance to outcomes they are all user based, costs and risks too.

I find it pessimistic to take that static view on work, as if "that's it, all we needed is invented", and now we are fighting for positions like musical chairs

[lm28469]

> I don't think "replaced" is a good word here.. augmented and expanded. With AI we are expanding our activities, users expect more, competition forces companies to do more.

Daily reminder that the vast majority of value generated by productivity boost brought by technology in the last 50 years doesn't benefit the workers

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSG4s-x...

[DaveZale]

Agree for almost all jobs, but some, like my fathers, was about crawling inside huge metal pieces to do precision machining. For unique piecework, it might not be economical to train AI. Surely equivalents to this exist elsewhere