This is how I felt as an undergrad working in a research lab. Endless, annoying pipetting. Labeling tubes. Bitchwork that the postdoc didn't want to do. I kept thinking... there's no way they can't come up with a robot to do this.

My guess is the technology to do it is there but the motivation isn't - most undergrads (me included) work in research labs for free with the hope of getting into med school.

Luckily, I'm in med school now so I don't have to worry about being taken advantage of in that way. But every time I think about how the system does this to so many premeds, it pisses me off.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_resident_work_hours

You may enjoy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_God

And yeah residency is kinda of bullshit. Not looking forward to it :(

I don't think anyone goes into medical school these days without knowing about residency, though. At least, I would hope not.

At least I won't feel like a robot could be doing better than me, though? Although that might soon change with AI advancements, depending on what I specialize in.

Overall, if I could do it over again, I would have just gotten a CS degree. I'm afraid to read House of God because I feel jaded enough as it is.

Are you a physician btw?

While engineers (like myself) want to deal in absolutes, that is not the nature of disease and people. As such, AI may become a tool, but don't expect an AI in the near future to take over diagnostics. Additionally an AI isn't going to bring compassion to patients situation. To that point, learn the difference between empathy and compassion.

https://zdoggmd.com/ama-005/

Lol.

It's not that the motivation isn't there to get robots to do the bitchwork in science, it's that the money isn't there in an academic setting.

What I meant was - the motivation isn't there because you can just get people to do your bitchwork for way less than it would cost to invest in a robot.

PIs everywhere: “Why would I buy this robot when I could get an undergrad to do the work for free?”

Although if they hated taking the time to train undergrads maybe they’d give it a shot

Then again, they don’t train the undergrads, postdocs do

If censorship is the case, then may I make the point that instead of censoring people critical of y combination backed products/services, maybe you should listen to your potential client/customer base, as my opinion with this product is shared by others in academia. Your money would probably go a lot further.

There are better systems out there, but not every academic lab is willing to fork over the cash.

In the US, nobody is _made_ to do such work. However, until it is automated there will always be a price for it in the labor market.

> And for $13.75 an hour, it definitely isn't worth it.

Presumably the mindless nature of the work increases the wages. Do you recall the minimum wage in that region at the time?

I’m trying to arrive at is a logical sequence of steps like: the less desireable work is, the higher it’s price in the labor market. It’s more profitable to automate more expensive labor. Thus, by quitting you shortened the time-to-automate.

A billion of people around the world would be happy to work with that hourly rate.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/05061...

http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/771271476908686029/Segal.pdf suggests that the number to be in the global 1% is around $50,000 PPP per person in a given household.

If that were the case, I would be happy to do anything, including relocating to the US and working as an Amazon's robot.

If we talk about working for that rate in their native country, I think it can be up to 5 billion. And a billion more will take the job without being too happy.