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So you think you could be an electrician?

456 points · 414 comments · zdw

  1. mkotlikov · · focus · HN ↗
    5 years ago everyone knew that human thinking was the last thing to get automated. Now everyone knows that physical labor is an impenetrable fortress against AI.

    The hardware is already there waiting for the right model to direct it. If GPT 7 or Claude 6 is a true AGI we'll be months away from the same type of blue collar automation. The fact that the models are already building with blender demonstrates a growing understanding of the necessary spatial awareness and reasoning.

    1. jen729w · · focus · HN ↗
      You've never contorted yourself under a sink trying to undo a pipe, have you?

      People with wrenches aren't being replaced any time in the next 50 years.

      1. chpatrick · · focus · HN ↗
        You think they won't invent the robot with the wrench in the next 50 years?
        1. jen729w · · focus · HN ↗
          I think they won't replace most household plumbers.
          1. chpatrick · · focus · HN ↗
            We didn't think artists and software engineers would be replaced only a few years ago.
            1. kube-system · · focus · HN ↗
              And they haven’t been
            2. jen729w · · focus · HN ↗
              It's almost like sitting at a keyboard and typing is different to driving to a site, lugging a drain snake off the back of a flatbed, asking the owner where their outside tap is, cutting the dead bush away so you can reach that tap, finding the drain, snaking the thing down the drain, monitoring it all, not making a mess in the customer's back yard, packing it all up, and driving away.

              I mean they're basically the same job.

              1. chpatrick · · focus · HN ↗
                I didn't say they were the same, just that "surely those jobs won't be automated" wasn't a very good prediction.
                1. jen729w · · focus · HN ↗
                  Which part of my backyard plumber story do you think will be automated?

                  Either the plumber is replaced, or they aren't. I contest that they aren't.

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