Re:1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee
by HWR_14 on Saturday July 31, 2021 @05:14PM
(#28021611)
> Have you ever seen a robot unclog a toiler? Get into a greasy kitchen vent to clean it? Clean out the molt between the tiles?
I have seen a plunger-bot. I have never seen a commercial plunger-bot. I think I've also seen a mold scrubber bot. I'm not trying to minimize the skill involved. I'm trying to say that the labor it replaces (assuming the time value of money and minimum wage increases cancel out) is worth 362,500 over 25 years. That's a lot of money, but it's also not for a robot that can do all those things assuming it was as efficient as replacing a whole person. And less if the robot has to be replaced more frequently.
If the market supported a robot that cost a few orders of magnitude more than that, I can see a fleet of robots. Not 100% "let 'er rip" L-5 autonomy, but where one person managed a fleet of specialized robots. Mapping out the surfaces ahead of time, etc.
I will say, I was responding to a "janitor" in the office environment doing routine tasks emptying trash. Not a kitchen vent cleaner. There are a lot of deep cleaning actions that would be harder to automate, and given their rareness and extra difficulty are likely the last to go.
I have seen a plunger-bot. I have never seen a commercial plunger-bot. I think I've also seen a mold scrubber bot. I'm not trying to minimize the skill involved. I'm trying to say that the labor it replaces (assuming the time value of money and minimum wage increases cancel out) is worth 362,500 over 25 years. That's a lot of money, but it's also not for a robot that can do all those things assuming it was as efficient as replacing a whole person. And less if the robot has to be replaced more frequently.
If the market supported a robot that cost a few orders of magnitude more than that, I can see a fleet of robots. Not 100% "let 'er rip" L-5 autonomy, but where one person managed a fleet of specialized robots. Mapping out the surfaces ahead of time, etc.
I will say, I was responding to a "janitor" in the office environment doing routine tasks emptying trash. Not a kitchen vent cleaner. There are a lot of deep cleaning actions that would be harder to automate, and given their rareness and extra difficulty are likely the last to go.