The robot can lay bricks at least three times faster than humans - and it never gets tired or makes mistakes. VICE News went to a construction site in Virginia to see SAM at work. Watch more AI: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Jgau2BKTHbk.html
@@kamara6392 unless a robot can be built to climb a ladder, fit in random tight spaces, there'll be apprentices. It'd be too complex of a robot to replicate a human. Hydraulics to get up high, and install piping & stuff doesn't seem realistic. Random repetitive work, won't last though
I worked with foremen like that. Run almost to quitting time and have to go do paper work. Or order tubs of grout a few minutes before quitting time! Oh yeah in over 50 years I have seen it all! You just pack up your tools at quitting time and leave. The next day he will” be different!
When they invent a robot to feed the machine then they will be in trouble! Like the guy said they don't have to many places with long brick walls plus it takes a lot of time to set the machine up plus two men have to keep it fed so you really can't compare it against one man!writing this in marched
ROTO SCOPIC those take to long ,to set up . and could only do straight walls not flexible .Very limited. cost to much, and truly not cost effective . so good luck with that machine .
+Angel Barbosa These robots are like computers from 1960's - big, difficult to operate, & expensive. It is now 2017, and you can buy a cheap laptop that does everything better than its 1960's predecessors. I'd imagine 50-60 years from now people could buy a general purpose robot for a thousand bucks or less.
1 guy lays 900 bricks the robot 3000 but needs 5 guys to operate needs to lay 4500 to match the 1 guy so no worries. By the time they set everything for the robot Jose and Juan already finished the wall.
To be fair he said it takes 2 guys to operate, not 5. So it's laying over 50% more bricks when you take away the 1800 bricks those 2 guys could lay in a day.
The robot has apparently doubled in efficiency over the last few years. What happens when it doubles again? What happens when it doesn't need someone to feed it bricks?
@Đeath Vader it's not taking jobs at all it's just increasing productivity once the technology improves, not to mention bricklaying is one of the most in demand trades in the modern day due to a lack of people finishing apprenticeships
My point is if anything at all this robot will not replace highly skilled masons, but will decrease the amount of masons needed, therefore increasing the need for workers with more skill and speed, which will also increase the pay for those workers.
Anyone can drive as fast as a racing driver in a straight line, the skill comes when you hit the corner. These robots are 50% faster for a single skin long straight wall. Introduce window openings, wall ties, reveals and piers (like in 98% of all brickwork jobs) and the robot is screwed. Horses for courses.
It's basically the same as with the road paver laying robots. They can do kilometers on end, much much faster than a human can. It needs 2 people to operate it and insert the triangular pavers every other row, and someone to ride a front loader to feed it pavers. But it'll lay 100 metres an hour, it does the work of about 10 people and only needs a 3 person crew. The biggest downside is that it's no good at corners or doing pattern work. But for doing the bulk of a street it's great. It's taking away jobs for sure, but for every 7 jobs it takes away, it saves 10 people's spine. Which isn't a bad deal.
I work in automation repair and have for 34 years. Its truly advanced in ways I did not see coming. It would be a big mistake to underestimate the advancement that can and will happen in this line of work.
I think he would just say something along the lines of "I'm so good at laying bricks, there's no robot that's better at laying bricks than me" or "What robot? That's fake news!"
Venom Snake he should think like this: more efficient construction in the USA and one new company in the USA. Yay more jobs less labor intensive work for humans meaning better health less dangerous probs less construction accidents from bad bricklaying
Remember, the first cars went only about 5mph, were hard to crank, and people predicted they would never replace horses. "Nobody would want a home computer." -- famous last words
Funny you should say that, because besides gamers and office workers, nobody else really wants a computer at home anymore...Because their phones can do almost everything the computers can do.
@@pedinhuh16 The trouble is, the phones cause brain tumors, such as the ones that killed Ted Kennedy and OJ Simpson's lawyer. A home desktop does not. Plus, an adult does not want to spend all day twiddling thumbs on a tiny keypad. Plus, you can't do any serious editing / writing work on a phone. Nobody else? No, every professional I know around me works from a larger screen, not a phone. Gamers are losers who don't create much and don't make much money, since they waste so much time. Can you imagine Henry Ford or Elon or Bill Gates sitting around gaming all day? Impossible.
Look how much muck is wasted too, they want to invent a robot for bricklayers, then all it need do is climb the scaffolding with supplies of bricks, mortar and a built in tea urn in the chest =D
UNRAVELING THE MATRIX right now but in a few years these things only get better this didn't even exsist in someone's thoughts 10 years ago and now it's only in its infant stage
you are just defensive over losing your job, but this machine will get upgraded every year and get better and faster, and humans will remain the same level ... this is progress its unavoidable
@@noncontradiction Yeah right now thats how it is, but tech improves and it improves rapidly. In a decade, you probably won't need humans in the process much
So the robot need 3 workers to assist it and is a pain to setup, for 3000 bricks per day. A worker is putting 1000 bricks per day, so 3 worker can lay 3000 bricks per day, don't need setup/maintenance/electricity/technician or high skilled employee... I think it's not quite there yet... I suppose the problem is also the use of human adapted brick and material for a robot. Bigger brick or other material might be better for the robot
no. you have to be skilled to assist and operate that robot. it requires way fewer skills to lay those bricks than operate that robot. the robot is not paid. lol. the price will go down as the machines get more reliable, faster, etc.
peter janjanin even in McDonald you need someone train to fix the machine in case of problem. I suppose an automated soda or ice cream dispenser is not that simple... This robot surely need some fine tuning during operation, so at least one of the member need to be train. Also someone need to be able to maintain the robot, part need to be controlled / replaced.
Laying 3000 bricks in 8 hours. With the help of 2 "real bricklayers" to do the joints and another man feeding it .... So it means that the robot by itself ain't worth a shit.
It's worthy is in the endurance, it is capable of working non stop (albeit needed to be fill with materials first) but overall the worth is absolutely better, because worker only need to supply materials while the work are done by machine.
An associate of mine many years ago trained to do heavy construction welding, but he liked deep sea diving and took courses on it, then he trained as a deep sea welder for underwater construction and platforms, he got in to robot technology and learned on programming them, whilst doing that he learned how to use the robot for deepwater welding, now he sits on a platform remote operating these welding robots. He just kept evolving as the technology became into practice and stayed ahead of the game so his job was very sought after in a niche market that was developing... It’s just like agriculture, it doesn’t need huge man power as it once did, keep up or fade away....
@@Idontwantahandle6669 Albeit he’s worked all over the world and now train others to do what he did as he’s now a one of a small group of partners of this multimillion dollar company, developed and incorporated AI into their systems that still requires human interaction. I guess you’re right, he’ll definitely be out of a job as it’s called retirement at 50…
I work in automation repair and have most of my adult life, about 35 years and the advancements have been amazing. If I was picking a career today I would ask myself " can it be automated". This is going to be and is an issue for those less educated. Do not kid yourself on this. I have seen completely automated warehouses with robots doing things that you would not believe, its here now.
It's a lot harder. To replace his job you would need to make a sentient computer program, like Data on Star Trek. We're hundreds of years from that, if it is even possible to do it. And such a program would have the same rights as any other US citizen so it can demand pay, so there's no incentive to do it.
@@neutrino78x If that were the case they would make those self checkout registers at the grocery store pay the same taxes and social security that a regular employee must pay.
@@johnbarnesNnaptown "f that were the case they would make those self checkout registers at the grocery store pay the same taxes and social security that a regular employee must pay." No......because that doesn't require human judgement, human creativity and human reason. That's just scanning barcodes. Whereas software development, legal services including lawyers, the practice of medicine, the practice of science, these things all require humans. Jobs like that should be safe the foreseeable future. 🙂
@@neutrino78x the original point I was replying to was that if computers were sentient you would have to treat them as humans that have rights and are deserving of compassion. That sentiment is absent when it comes to actual humans that may be dependent on social security or other government programs in a world where automation and AI is taking the place of people that would pay into those programs.
@@johnbarnesNnaptown " That sentiment is absent when it comes to actual humans that may be dependent on social security or other government programs in a world where automation and AI is taking the place of people that would pay into those programs." Well, eventually we'll probably do UBI, if it gets to the point that very few human workers are needed. It's not clear that UBI would necessarily ever be needed, though....normally when a job becomes obsolete due to automation it creates others. But that's supposedly how things work in Star Trek, where there's no rote labor, it's all robots. Presumably everybody gets Universal Basic Income, and a guaranteed place to live. There would still be scarcity though, and if you wanted to pay for things beyond what's guaranteed, you still have the option to work, and those people generate a lot of wealth to support the UBI. 🙂
Ya I know right the bricklayers I worked for were about as fast as the robot and didn't leave so much extra mortar oozing out of the joints. They must be getting their numbers from dog fracking bricklayers that take smoke breaks every 20 minutes and play with the mortar on their boards with their trowels for extended periods of time, tap on every brick 15 times and wait until they run out of mortar before they tell the forklift operator the box is empty as an excuse to stop working for 10 minutes.
rustyscrapper bro I can’t stand when the masons sit there and tap on their mud boards with their trowels. I wanna throw the shovel at them when they do that shit 😂 or sit there and yell that they need cuts
Your misinformed ita about loss of revenue that they are worried about they dont pay tax on ther money they dont spend the money in the states and they send it back to their country so it revenue never counted here it may not be much but it all ads up thats part of why our money isnt worth shit because most things arent made in the states any more so the money goes to other countries
Ain’t that a shift, a robot taken a job away from a Mexican. Well if he complains he’ll be called xenophobic and told that he didn’t really want that job
If they develop a second arm for the robot, one arm could be setting a brick while the other arm is picking up and mudding a brick. So as one arm was releasing a set brick the next arm would be a split second behind it with the next brick. That would make it go nearly twice as fast as it is now. From a business standpoint, I can see why an owner would invest in this, skilled bricklayers are extremely hard to find and if you do happen to have some good ones, there nothing you can do to keep them from leaving. And the saving is not just the face wage. The machine has no workers comp, no SSN match, no health insurance, no vacation days, no pension, no sick days. Just maintain cost like any other piece of equipment.
plus no coffee breaks or 8-12 hour shifts...it will work 24 hr per day if supported. skilled labor may be required now but with upgrades only semi-skilled humans and eventually nobody at all
This robot makes the work of 3 workers but it needs 2 operators, X amount of workers to set it up and the technicians to program it therefore it is not replacing 3 workers. Maybe if the wall is several miles long then it will make sense.The designers of this robot have a long way to go to challenge the masonry workers skills.
Give it time and it might happen to replace human workers in most places. Think about what jobs looked like 50 years ago and then think about what they will look in 10, 20 or even 50 years from now on. You have already software writing articles, composing songs, and doing all sorts of menial tasks. I believe, the changes will come much faster than people believe. And the reason for it is very simple. Workers make more than 30% of the expenses. So anyone has a real incetive to find ways to cut those. And machines, have always been a sure and steady way of doing it. It might take time, but I am certain it will happen. We humans tend to put our selfs on a pedestal and the skills we apply, but particularly menial and tedious tasks, can be actually automated relatively easy. Hell, if a robot can compose songs and create art, which some do, then you will see robots replacing brick layers at some point.
Not to mention engineers arent building to brick work. In other words theres gonna be special cuts and pieces in the wall this would be impossible for this machine to do
@@CrniWuk for masonry u need a machine with ai we make the building square theres to many variables involved. Theres mistakes in blue prints. Mistakes in foundation. Theres allways something out of square if we just went by ablue print shit would be fucked up. Usually 2 or 3 minds gather to come up with solutions to these problems. Theres also logistic nighmares like how to program for the right mixture because the instructions on the bag dont take into account humidity temprature and climate factors which effect how rapidly the mix sets. Then u got to wonder how does this machine keep the mud from setting up before its ready. And how do u clean it because standard mixers are beat with a large hammer and sprayed out. U would need its own mixer and it own water supply so u tie up the job sites water . u wouldalso have to clean it out every 2 hours or it would gum up.
@@MrEvilsurpent u must be in masonry. They should instead work on a different building method and material, instead of getting a machine to build with bricks.
@Matthew Neddeau honestly im actually more happy hes not dead, nor brain injured and plus he got to get a pathway out of intense manual labour in 30°C heat for crap pay. I asked him if he misses being a bricklayer and he said "hell no, i should have left that job 19 years ago, now i get to enjoy life at home but with a trade off of not being able to enjoy life at its full potential."
@@guy_in_ashopping_cart-sfs967 crap pay? here in Ohio the rate is 31hr$. to 33$hr when ever our boots leave the ground + the Healthcare benefits retirement
Well it's not going to come right out of the gate and be perfect. This is trial and error stuff you're watching here. They still need to work on a lot before you could set one of these things on a task and just forget about it.
Ultimately, the way labor works in this country, someone will decide that you don't need a mason to clean up after it, so it will lay the bricks of three masons, and be followed by two guys who are not tradesmen. The entire purpose of mechanization (furniture manufacturing, etc) has been to get skilled trades out of the equation when making things, and decrease labor cost first even if it means not decreasing employee count.
they have been replaced by cheap mexican labor, but now all labor is not cheap anymore and robots will be the future. you don't think an asimo or boston dynamics robot could lay bricks? they can autonomously traverse a hallway and figure out how to open doors. laying brick would be cake
But why are we not talking about the fact that these guys are laying millions of bricks over a concrete wall as a façade only...?! Such a waste of time and resources, with or without robitics. Ever thought of painting that concrete wall?
Spooncer We are moving toward slavery trust me you can say that confidently if you are in IT, IT depicts the social changes in fast-forward way which people in other sector can't see. First outsourcing to India and other countries and in those countries Automation is cutting jobs. Trust me coders will long live in to feed the morsels to Artificial intelligence, there will be few people to maintain it, testing team then automation will do those by itself. It is started. and fast. I have seen it. Coming back to slavery with all those machines and automation only few will have power and will manipulate the market.....the job.....slavery! Only brain game will be there who can't compete in analytical skill Top reasoning power won't have jobs.
As long as I can have that 1 hour a day, 3 day work week that consists solely of pressing a button... sure. Given their standard of living, George got paid reasonable well for his three button pushes a week, so I'm good with it.
production being the same here's the real meat and potatoes: Sam never goes on break or lunch. Sam never sues for harassment or discrimination, Sam never files medical claims or requires medical insurance, Sam doesn't come to work in a bad mood, Sam doesn't bring his home life to work, Sam shows up everyday and reliably does his job, Unless Sam is programmed or set up wrong, Sam doesn't make mistakes, if Sam falls off that scaffolding and crashes the media won't vilify the company and the family of Sam won't sue. Need more?
Will likely never happen (For the foreseeable future at least). Robots so far are only capable of taking over mostly repetitious jobs, or mastering a very specific activity. You would need a general intelligence robot to take over such a job. Brick laying requires significantly less brain power.
Who knows if buildings are going to be built using bricks in the future. Being how tech companies like Apple are making their headquarters more ecologically friendly, there could be a shift of the materials being used to make these buildings, bricklaying may be pushed back as an item of the past... But who knows, time will tell. Great story, by the way!
That is subjective. The average brick layer is paid ~$50K per year with an addition ~50% to the employer for taxes and insurance and things, and he can lay 900 brick. The robot plus 2 people was laying 3.6 times that, meaning the robot is worth 1.6 brick layers, meaning it is worth ~$122K per year, if its life is over 10 years it can be cheaper then a brick layer if it cost less the 1 million with a good warranty.
@@mercantilistic I never said it's not hard, I said out of all languages, it's probably the easiest (as long as you know a language that uses the same alphabet).
@@t3ddyb34r5 and I'm telling that is demonstrably not true. You can think whatever you like but it's not accurate. There are so many grammatically, spelling and pronunciation exceptions in English.
Never makes a mistake as long as a human is monitoring it. Places bricks only, can’t finish the joint or brush for aesthetics. Doesn’t do corners, but goes like hell in a straight line. Takes several days to set up just to get rolling. Doesn’t pee in corners *bonus*
Actually, I like this robot. Coming from a construction company, lot of you have no idea how some workers literally do nothing and still wants to get paid.
Whay does it do with coals and chippers? no striking, long set up times, and it needs 2 guys to monitor it all day long. Yeah, brag about 3200 laying brick on a dead wall. It's not threatening yet.
Robot does 3200 bricks. ..3 skilled bricklayers could do 3200 easy peasy .can the robot learn to cheat gauge to make things work, or maybe account for setup and disassemble time. This looks incredibly stupid
“The robot lays bricks 3 times faster than a human bricklayer”...”the robot needs 2 assistant bricklayers to clean and point the mortar afterwards” Does that mean the robot is less efficient than a human bricklayer when you account for scaffolding and maintenance requirements!? Sometimes I think it’s technology for technologies sake 🙄
technology only gets better. every process can get improved. And you can pay those assistants less than half of a brick layer. And really whats stopping the robot from laying 2....or 3 bricks in one motion, it goes from 3000 bricks a day to 6 and 9k with out even increasing the speed at which it lays, just the quantity of bricks laid. Anyways Biden 2020 tear down that wall we need more migrants, its good for the economy
because engineers are getting smarter, education is improving and so is society, if you don't like it your free to throw your cell phone In the garbage, donate your car and buy a horse if your against technology, if a brickworker loses his job hes free to apply somewhere else that's needs workers
@@4dak88 Tradesman are one of the more important jobs in the world. Why try to replace that with robots. I'm not really worried about losing my job to a robot because I doubt a robot can crawl underneath a house and fix a broken pipe or wire a building.
Yeah 1,000 a day is a joke... they would be fired before lunch if they went that slow on a residential job. 2300-2500 is "normal" I saw a 72 year old man lay around 3300 once
Looks like the actual workers aren't all that worried about jobs. That robot needs a lot of help and they can't even find enough people who want that work anyway.
assigning robots to work makes businesses richer. not paying much to people and taking positions from people who are willing to work for a living. just bc we can't do it fast as the robot, doesn't mean we can't get the job done.
Even at such a brutal pace, you’re nowhere near 3k a day, let alone staying within the same tolerances the robot achieves all day long. Like the worker said, these long lays on large commercial buildings work to the strength of this robot, not humans.
A long way to go before robots replace brikies, there are things this machine will never be able to do it has no judgement or understanding of what its doing.
@@simonelliott7570 This machine wasnt made to replace them. It was made to make it faster and more efficent. The company has said (forgot if it was their website of a news article) that it didn't want to replace construction workers
The U.S. needs to start apprentice programs like they do in other countries these construction jobs pay well but no benefits these people in Congress should get health insurance for every citizen start apprentice programs and make this country great again
As long as the already rich business owner gets richer who cares if some labourer can't feed his family , they say in 20 years 40% of jobs be gone thanks to robots
So we should slow down technological progress so some people can keep their jobs? Before the car was invented, people had to use horse and cart. Should we have banned the production of cars, so that carriage manufacturers could stay in business?
This is a great step, but they're at least 20 years from having any sort of robot that can lay any sort of detailed work. That would involve cutting and various angles. The framing and concrete you are laying on is not always straight either. Once they make a robot that can adapt to these variables, a company will have to make it economical and serviceable. These square brick buildings with walls all in the same plane are the few and far between. Source - commercial masonry project manager
@Mike Wilhelmson and you don't know jack shit about machine learning. Not this stupid buzzword "AI" but actual machine learning, in this case for tasks like this reinforcment learning. I worked construction throughout my whole undergrad, mostly framing, and although there will still be a good amount of jobs on construction sites, in the next 15 years a lot of dumbasses like you who I used to work with will be out of a job, because of my current career, which is using reinforcment learning to automate tasks in the construction industry. People don't seem to understand that this is just the first generation. These machines will improve and start working on more complicated tasks. For example my company is making pretty good progress in automating laying and tying rebar using only robots from just a revit design. 2 people are needed on a job that would for its size usually 10.
I appreciate that this is a few years old now, but I can't figure out why they were using real bricks for this job in the first place? Looks like they could have fitted brick slip panels in a lot less time as it's just cladding for some vast structure.
Tooling joints takes alot of time, i could easily lay 3000 with good mortar, no tooling, installing no insulation or reinforcements. I dont require hours of programming in between different types and bands of masonry.
It takes minimum of 25 years from birth to a master bricklayer and counting the cost of feeding, clothing, educating,providing healthcare the robots it could be cheaper and faster to freshly mint new master level bricklayer robots that won't have doubts whether they would like to spend the rest of operating life laying bricks unlike humans
@@bisasomukasa You obviously don't work in any type of construction trade. You are not factoring in and accounting for the ability to build a lead, install proper anchoring, insulation, mortar net, weep vents. In brick work you constantly have to hit certain heights for Windows, doors, relief angle irons, this changes the the uniformity of how the wall will be laid. You must constantly get up or get down to hit this measurements. All of that can be easily done on the fly with a human bricklayer. Not to mention this robot can only work on 1 type of scaffolding. It can't wash down either. It's not saving time or money. It can't lay block, it can't lay stone. These machines won't be taking our jobs anytime soon, if ever. There is much more to masonry than laying a brick in a wall.
How much does one of those things cost to keep up. Not to mention they had 2 guys working with it and keeping it going. The cost of that thing and upkeep is probably more expensive than a good brick layer that runs off of piss and vinegar. Robots will never compete with humans. Wow he can lay 3000 brick down a straight line with a man tooling his joints and one feeding him brick and mud. Guess what it doesn’t take 25 years to get to that. 3 years and a good apprentice can run and gun 3000 with a jointer and someone feeding him. We call them line beaters and they make less than the rest of the guys who can layout hand build set stone etc. if you are paying more than $20 an hour for that thing you are paying too much cause you could have grabbed a 3 year apprentice and at least he could get better. With that thing you better find a lot of long straight walls. Smh😂😂😂😂😂
2-3 extra men needed anyway? So each lays 1000 brick. That’s 3000 brick. Usually there is 5-8 men on wall that size. The machine lays far less than a crew of humans that don’t need 3 days of setup before they even begin.
The robot will eventually get exponentially faster, smarter and will be guaranteed to reach a point where it outperforms an entire human team. The thing is it will likely take a long time before that happens, and by that point masonry working may not even be a desirable or neccessary job anymore.
Brick worker can lay 1k a day. The robot can lay just under 3k with 2 people helping it. I wonder after maintenance, electricity, and the cost of it to begin with actually makes it that much cheaper
I say the same thing about the coal industry. As long as those in power train people in new technologies (clean energy, technology maintenance and repair, computer sciences, etc.) there won’t be a problem. The problem arises when you lay everyone off and don’t offer a job replacement strategy that offers them more money and the potential to grow. People want to grow and change but not at the expense of security and livelihood.
The other half of the problem is that if the skillset is not passed on to new generations then the knowledge/talent goes away, and many amazing things are lost. This has already happened in bookbinding and to a degree in the chipmaking space. Suddenly the chipmakers are trying to produce domestically again and they're discovering that their global parasitism has them stuck in a rough place. I have seen companies outsource tons of jobs instead of reinvesting in the communities they are headquartered in, and it's hard to argue when you can get two developers for the price of one, but the reality is that when talent is only being produced by small businesses and then hoovered up by the bigger ones, outsourcing actually robs the outsourced-to country of workers to run their own local businesses and develop their own talent pools. I think that robotics and automation are exciting, and I love the 3D printing space, but I also firmly believe we need to preserve the heritage of the labor traditions and innovations it took to get us there, because if you slip on a ladder and find you've kicked out all the rings before this one, sometimes it's a long way down.
1:04 STRAIGHT LIES about construction efficiency. It's increased over 20 FOLD in the last 30 years. Mainly due to crimped fittings and cordless tools and scissor lifts and boom lifts.
20 fold? Yeah, that's going to be a [citation needed] because that is patently absurd. But I don't doubt that there has been some productivity gains from the technologies you mention.
The idea that I've always thought that America would push towards is pretty much a Utopia that everyone is free to pursue whatever that want because we'll just have robots doing everything. However it'd quickly turn to a dystopia.
