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RE: $4000 3D-Printed House Could Provide Shelter To The World's Homeless

in #news7 years ago (edited)

You are not correct about construction jobs. I may be the last man alive to be replaced by robots. A huge number of construction jobs are maintaining extant structures, many of which are stick built. While it is possible that robots could do this, it isn't likely they'll do it soon.

Spraying concrete isn't difficult, compared to figuring out where the termites or carpenter ants are getting in, and why the wood is wet enough for them to eat. Then repairing the problem area is somewhat demanding of cognizance of often serial bouts of original construction tacked onto one another, and a vast suite of skills ranging from the demolition work, to framing, various surfaces, and how to patch them, and on and on.

Such highly variable and diverse tasks aren't suited to automation.

Concrete may be the very first construction job robots take over, as it involves little more than building and stripping forms, and smoothing the surface after the pour over the rebar. Far less to it.