Where are the robotic bricklayers?
The value of work is not in the work done; it&#x27;s in the decisions being made. It&#x27;s the ability to handle edge cases, to work your way through ambiguity, to &quot;unstuck&quot; a stuck situation, and to resolve tricky unforeseen issues.<p>If you build a robot that only handles the main workflow and can&#x27;t handle any of the exceptions, you&#x27;re not automating anything; you&#x27;re building a convenience tool. Basically, you&#x27;re removing some of the labor part of the job, but still keeping the decision making part of the job for humans.<p>This is both economically unviable and largely unpopular. You&#x27;re not reducing labor costs by much, because you still need humans around. And workers lose control over their job, and have to &quot;work around&quot; the robot&#x27;s limitations. Instead of being freed up to do more work, they become babysitters of machines that they have to oversee so it doesn&#x27;t mess up everything.<p>This is why partial robotic systems don&#x27;t really exist; either it&#x27;s a nifty tool that speeds up a small repeatable process of your work, or it&#x27;s building the entire house.