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> And will there then be a kind of economic "inversion", where the intellectual people prefer to work on interesting stuff at the expense of money, while the "n
by NhanH 10y ago
> And will there then be a kind of economic "inversion", where the intellectual people prefer to work on interesting stuff at the expense of money, while the "non-intellectual" (need a better word here) people will make all the money doing the dirty jobs?
In the long run, any menial task is supposed to be automated away completely. In short term, what you described already happened in area like Post-doc and game industry (or humanities degree, if you will ...).
- nine_k 10y agoI don't think plumbing or even waste collection is going to be seriously automated any time soon. Can you imagine what kind of autonomous robot would it take to be able to do regular plumbing work, in cramped spaces, with low visibility, requiring relatively significant physical efforts? The software side of it can definitely be solved (though not easy at all). The hardware side would require significant breakthroughs, if the device is going to be cost-effective even compared to a highly-paid certified plumber. Same applies to electricians, and in certain degree to car mechanics, too. We have large swaths of infrastructure built with maintenance by humans in mind. These humans are not exactly easy to replace with robots.
- sokoloff 10y agoAgreed, though I don't think I'd include electricians, plumbers, and car mechanics work in the set of things called "menial tasks". Those are skilled trades, even though blue-collar.
- nine_k 10y agoTotally agreed. E.g. working successfully with old, crooked, space-constrained pipe connections, let alone broken and misbehaving pipes, does take some ingenuity. The manual component of the work can only be helped so much even with the best tools. Maybe when plumbing standards change drastically this could be reasonably automated, but this would take decades if not centuries, because old buildings are not going anywhere anytime soon.
- cududa 10y agoWaste collection I can see being automated in suburbs. Already many of them have arms that grab the trash/ recycling and dump them automatically with just a driver behind the wheel.
- aninhumer 10y agoI'd imagine the way plumbing might eventually be automated is by new buildings being designed with that in mind.