5 ms·
automation makes every job scalable, no?
by femiagbabiaka 8mo ago
automation makes every job scalable, no?
- pier25 8mo agocan you automate a tailor?
- Epa095 8mo agoIsn't tailors by and large already outcompeted by cheap new clothes?
- dolebirchwood 8mo agoA big point of seeing a tailor is getting yourself fitted for custom clothing that is specifically made just for you. As someone who's bought $200 off-the-rack suits and $2,000 tailor-made suits, there's a world of difference between the two, especially when you have an atypical body type. (Granted, to the main point, I still think a tailor could be automated in some distant future, but we'll need robots to perform physical interactions, not just software.)
- bubblewand 8mo agoTailors are a niche thing for weirdos, now. It's not exactly a growth market. Most folks only wear a suit to weddings and funerals, and maybe job interviews. They have basically no need for more than two suits, and many try to get by with just one (in black, probably). Lots don't own one at all, maybe just a cheap fused-construction blazer or two, if even that. Outright bespoke clothes are a niche of a niche. Normal people wear clothes containing minimum 2% elastic and perhaps never, ever visit a tailor in their whole lives, except maybe one at a tux rental place or a wedding dress store, for their own wedding. If they repair clothes, it's sewing on the odd button at home or using iron-on denim patches. Past that, it's just not worth fixing, normal folks' clothes are so cheap. The whole market for tailors is practically an affectation. It's not serving much actual need any more, not from the perspective of the overwhelming majority of people who are happy with stretch-denim jeans and polyester sportswear jackets and such. It's basically 99% of the way to being an obsolete job, kept from total death by a few enthusiasts. Only a bit more lively than the market for, say, authentic regency-era footwear or something like that. (I am a fellow weirdo, for the record)
- apsurd 8mo agoI mean, you do you. Clothing is really _fashion_ for tons of people. Fashion is art. People like art.
- debatem1 8mo agoAs someone who has tried to make several businesses around art, people generally like art but not enough to pay "at scale" money for it.
- bubblewand 8mo agoYes, I am one of the people who has a preferred tailor who can do more than just let trousers waists out. I also know where the nearest cobbler is. That’s not normal, though. A dead industry often doesn’t entirely disappear, it just shrinks a bunch and comes to rely entirely on enthusiasts or very rare actual need, rather than broad need or appeal. Consider the draft horse breeder, or the carriage driver. There’s a market for both professions! But they’re itty-bitty. The day-to-day need for both is gone. Tailoring is hovering right in the edge of that kind of status, today. It’s dying, killed by $10-30 shirts and $20-50 trousers and $50-100 jackets all from largely synthetic materials, and a society that no longer expects anyone to wear anything “fancier” outside certain events. I mean, outside very unusual circles, dinner jackets are essentially ceremonial costume-wear, and business suits aren’t far behind on that track. You gonna wear a tailored wool hacking jacket or breathable linen Norfolk suit on your camping trip, or a bunch of polyester and nylon stuff from REI? LOL. All the situational tailored clothing but the business suit and blazer are near-extinct unless you want to look like a cosplayer, and those are on borrowed time.
- apsurd 8mo agoYes, your message is coming from the pov of economics and business, as makes sense in this thread! That's my mistake, I took your message more sentimentally. I've used tailoring probably 5 times in my life, with the only recurring need being to hem pants. "There is no money in tailoring" seems right. It's the "not all things need to make maximum $$$" that I speak to. You didn't pick this fight though, I did heh. My (successful) friend tells me all about how amazing it is to collect very expensive watches. I just need to be a "watch guy" and I'll come to understand. Once my eyes returned from rolling out of my head, I did concede a great point he made: there is no reason for watch makers to exist anymore. The fantastically amazing history and evolution of time-keeping and personal time-pieces is now purely supported by rich people that care to subsidize the art form. And so, maybe I really do aspire to be a watch guy after all... hmm.
- layer8 8mo agoNot if you want any tailoring to be done.
- bilbo0s 8mo agocheap new clothes Uh.. I don't mean to be that guy, but tailors aren't even operating in that market. People who use tailors aren't interested in off the rack items. Even when they do purchase off the rack or even secondhand items.. they'll go have some of those items tailored.
- Epa095 8mo ago> but tailors aren't even operating in that market. Not anymore.
- bilbo0s 8mo agoNot any time that most of us have even been alive. It's been well over half a century since tailors operated in the "cheap clothing" market. The clothes tailors make have, pretty much, always been expensive relative off the rack department store options. Probably because tailor made clothing doesn't "scale".
- UltraSane 8mo agoRich people still get suits custom made specifically to their measurements and preferences. They cost about $20,000 USD. It would be cool to have this process automated and affordable to the masses.
- scoofy 8mo agoA huge part of the tailoring business are making small adjustments to cheap clothing to get them 90% of the way to bespoke. If you’ve never done it, I strongly recommend getting your jackets tailored. Even a casual jacket will fit and look non-trivially better for $50-$100 and an afternoon at your local tailor. You can even get things like cycling gear tailored.
- ansgri 8mo agoAbsolutely. Design parametric families of patterns, 3d-scan the person, let customer adjust with live preview, laser cut, then fully automated or low-skill assembly. Probably not currently economical like many things involving physical world manipulation, but without obvious roadblocks.
- insane_dreamer 8mo agoyes but is there enough demand for tailoring that it would make it economically feasibly to create the investment to automate it? probably not. and in a world where many/most(?) people have lost their jobs to AI, only the wealthy few will be able to afford tailoring anyway
- kardashev8 8mo agocould you automate a BJJ coach?
- AntiDyatlov 8mo agoI mean, if AI doesn't stall out, maybe there will be BJJ bots in 10 years.
- handzhiev 8mo agoWho's going to pay for a BJJ coach when nearly everyone is out of job?
- aatd86 8mo agoYou will probably have time related free credits for AI usage. The more you sell stuff that are in demand and ship fast, the higher price you can command. Otherwise you just get basic income. People will have to be creative. Creativity doesn't scale to machines. Creative decision making has too many branches. So time based costs for product manufacturing and procurement. Everyone will barter again in a sense. Better money circulation. Those who just want entertainment can also do nothing. But entertainment will be a more important field. Already the case with tiktok, everyone is becoming an interntainer(sic) these days. You have things such as the police olympics so to speak in the UAE... :) So coaching people, personal improvement, wellness, will be good fields to be in.
- femiagbabiaka 8mo agoIMO literally automating the job isn't the only possible scenario -- already in the weightlifting space coaches are supplying skills and system prompts to llms that do their training for them, massively raising the number of students they can train at at time -- at some point that turns training into a zero sum game
- pphysch 8mo agoEven if it does, there will probably be a prolonged economic period where robots are doing dangerous/messy stuff like welding, plumbing but there is a human master guiding them from a few yards away, via prompts, controllers, etc. More of a semi-autonomous power tool than an fully autonomous master that is delivered by drone on-demand. Scalability is still a ways off.
- layer8 8mo agoDo you expect we’ll have AGA, artificial general automation?
- lukan 8mo agoI do. But it will take some time to get there.
- jimbokun 8mo agoI don’t see anything stopping that from happening in the very near future.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- femiagbabiaka 8mo agoI don't think it needs to be general to be scalable to the point that it causes previously safe industries to "race to the bottom" Uber didn't need to launch in every neighborhood to start destroying the taxi business Facebook didn't need to have every eyeball on the internet in order to massively disrupt trad advertising At some point there's just a tipping point
- UltraSane 8mo agoThat is the ultimate goal. We are very far from it for many jobs.
- scoofy 8mo agoIf we get AGI and fully autonomous robot assistants, we'll live in a post scarcity world like Star Trek, or somebody in control the robots will use them to enslave all of humanity... so... high variance outcome could go either way.
- insane_dreamer 8mo agogiven the history of humanity, the post-scarcity world of Star Trek seems highly unlikely