I know a lot of welding is repairing damaged equipment. Especially older or already Jerry-rigged devices. I'd imagine it would be extremely difficult and expensive to develop an AI and a machine that would be adaptable enough to do these sort of projects.
Would construction welders be any less 'non-standardized' than Plumbing or HVAC? I would think welders have to problem solve far more than them for their tasks..
Building everything to a schematic is easier to automate but I believe that already isn't the bulk of labor demand.
Theoretically a smart system with diagnostics could be more readily automated but those would be more expensive and probably be new constructions and come with their own host of technical and logistical issues. Sure it would be nice to have clogs and leaks mapped and remedied but it would take a while to become universal even if they were rolled out tommorow and worked perfectly.
Not dismissing it I just wonder what the "hard for machines" aspect is that I'm missing.
I know there are plenty of robotic welders out there and that progress implies they'll either expand more into "humans can't do that" territory and possibly become cheaper over time.