Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

asyrin25 t1_jd2th4k wrote

Reply to comment by JoshuaZ1 in I asked GPT-4 to compile a timeline on when which human tasks (not jobs) have been/will be replaced by AI or robots, plus one sentence reasoning each - it runs from 1959 to 2033. In a second post it lists which tasks it assumes will NOT be replaced by 2050, and why. (Remember it's cut-off 2021.) by marcandreewolf

We will change the physical world to accommodate them.

For example, we have robot vacuums in our house. There's certain floor layouts and things we owned that didn't work well with the robots.

So faced with the choice of sweeping ourselves every night or changing the rooms to be more robot friendly, we changed the rooms.

1

JoshuaZ1 t1_jd2uuf0 wrote

This only works when is actively making new buildings or homes. The amount of time that takes is massive. The vast majority of bars and homes are not going to get rebuilt in that short a period of time.

1

asyrin25 t1_jd3em35 wrote

Eh? No it doesn't. We didn't have to rebuild our home to make it robot vacuum friendly. You don't need to rebuild a bar to have a machine that can pour drinks and move them down to you.

Hell, you don't even need voice recognition. My local taco bells switched to no counter service. There's no one to take your order. You go to the giant screen, punch in what you want, pay, and one of the two employees in the whole store will put your bag of food on the shelf for you to get. My order accuracy has improved dramatically, they move through orders far more quickly, and subjectively it's a much better experience. All with less than half the staff they used to have.

1

JoshuaZ1 t1_jd3kdju wrote

> You don't need to rebuild a bar to have a machine that can pour drinks and move them down to you.

Sure, if all the machine is going to do is that, then yes. But a bar-tender does a lot more than that. They clean up spills, they collect change, they move seats around, they clean up at the end of the day, etc.

If we are talking about just machines to do some aspects of mix drinking and serving, then I agree that this is not that involved. But there is a lot more which is part of the job.

1

asyrin25 t1_jd3oouk wrote

Bar that cleans itself is pretty easy. Change deposited right to your order station if you're one of the few people that still pay with cash is a thing lots of basic machines do now. Chairs that move themselves is not crazy. We see very early examples of machines cleaning stores at the end of the day now.

People are expensive and less reliable. They get sick, need leave and vacations, and to not work too many hours. They need managers to manage them, usually on site.

Really, you don't even need real AI to do this. Just good automation. None of this requires you to completely rebuild the building and will absolutely be cheaper in the long run...not even that long, likely.

Nothing a bartender does is something a relatively simple series of machines can't do better and cheaper.

1

JoshuaZ1 t1_jd3q68h wrote

You are I think underestimating how many different machines this would involve, and how difficult clean up is of some things, like broken glass, vomit etc. Even if you can do every single part with a machine, the cost of doing all of them together with separate machines is high. Where machines may make a difference is in larger bars with multiple bar tenders. A single bar tender with some machines will likely be cheaper than a bar with three people, and still more practical than full automation.

Do you want to revisit this question in a few years. Do you want to continue this conversation in say 5 years and see how common fully automated bars are then and where the trends are?

2

asyrin25 t1_jd3qvrh wrote

I think you underestimate the power of capitalism and a manufacturer's willingness to reach untapped market segments or the advantages a bar with lower costs due to automation has over one with greater costs due to human capital.

The question is whether machines will EVER replace a bartender, not whether it will happen in the next 5 years. Let's revisit in 30 years once the tech is far into maturity.

1

JoshuaZ1 t1_jd3r61e wrote

My apologies. I thought we were discussing things in the context of the sort of timeline constructed by the OP. I agree that it will eventually happen, and 30 years sounds like a potentially plausible time frame.

2