Speaker 1: Can AI and robotics actually handle industries like construction, retail, restaurant, manufacturing, and even agriculture? What about plumbing, house repair, and all the handyman jobs and services we need on a regular basis? I published a video on why I believe AI is killing white-collar jobs, making the need to go get a degree almost redundant and unnecessary, but today I want to tell you about how AI and robotics will also affect the blue-collar industry, aka service-based work. Now there's some red tape around automation in these industries. I'm going to walk you through what that looks like and why the total automation of all blue-collar jobs will take a while. Will automation take over our skilled trades? That's the question we're going to answer in today's video. Hey, if we haven't met, I'm Julie McCoy, the president at Brandwell.ai, an all-in-one growth platform built to automate your website authority. I used to run a human writing agency, and after selling it in 2021, I asked myself which AI is going to replace me, and now I work for the platform that is absolutely putting together content as expertly as what I could write. In fact, doing it better in way less time. That's Brandwell. To learn more and try it out free for seven days, go to Brandwell.ai. Okay, so let's talk about blue-collar jobs and how automation is infiltrating and penetrating this kind of work. Today we're seeing robots lay bricks, autonomous tractors plowing fields, an entirely automated restaurant like Cali Express in Pasadena, California, where a miso robot called Flippy is grilling every burger. These examples are real and they're growing rapidly. Unlike office work and white-collar jobs, where tasks can be often broken down into repetitive data-driven processes, blue-collar jobs often require physical dexterity, problem solving and adaptability. But these are the areas that AI is struggling in. That said, a week in the breakthroughs around computing and artificial intelligence itself, you need more compute to grow the large language models, one week can be like 30 years. So I believe all these shortcomings, we're going to get past them in a very short amount of time, it's not going to take 50 to 80 years. So let's talk about the benefits of having AI in blue-collar jobs. I was talking to a contractor the other day, he knew that I worked in AI, everyone who meets me usually hears about AI within 10 seconds of our first chat, what can I say, it's ingrained into my personality at this point. Anyway, he kind of laughed whenever I told him that I believe robotics and AI will even affect service-based industries like his, and he was like, well how can I get ahead of that? And in 100% seriousness, I suggested that he look into buying and even training humanoids, to do all that manual labor he usually pays humans to do, like painting a house, construction, etc. He laughed, didn't want to hear about it and walked away. But that's kind of reflective of the state of the world, a lot of us are either in denial or just plain uninformed about the AI age and what's coming. But the people that are investing their time into learning about it, like you watching this video, are the people that I believe are going to win in the AI era. Maybe the humanoids aren't ready yet for that contractor to go out and buy a bunch and replace his workers that don't even show up every day, but what if he starts looking into it and we're just a few months away from the next-gen model that can do all of that, and then he invests in those humanoids when they come out, well he's going to be way ahead of the game and building a profitable business. So back to the overall benefits of robotics in blue-collar and service-based jobs. First of all, we're going to lower labor cost in an extraordinary way. We won't need cashiers, we won't need people to flip burgers, pizzas, we're going to be able to finally address challenges like labor shortages and high turnover rate. And if you go deeper down this rabbit hole of what's coming with the age of AGI, I think that we're going to need to look to new economic models such as UBI, UHI, a resource-based economy to redistribute the dividends that we as a society will gain from putting automation into every industry. So I don't think we need to freak out and say, well if the robots are doing all the jobs, how am I going to get paid? Because payment itself and how currency works could look very different in an age of total automation. Another benefit of robots and AI in blue-collar work is in short, improved service quality. AI doesn't get tired, frustrated, distracted, it can actually be a better worker, far better than a tired, angry human. We've all been there. We're going to see enhancements in areas like food quality and safety, because automated cooking systems can prepare dishes with precise timing and temperature control every single time. Every meal can meet quality standards. We can reduce waste, monitor food storage conditions in a better, more accurate way than humans can. We're going to see increased efficiency, no wait times because robotics is on it. And from the savings in labor that restaurants alone can gain, we might see investments in better food quality, more organic, healthy ingredients because the restaurant actually has margin to put back into that. And of course there's data-driven insights, AI has access to far more data analysis capabilities than a single human ever will. It can analyze vast amounts of customer preferences and even prepare more diverse menus based on what customers actually want. A tired human working a 10-hour shift is going to be out of creativity and data analysis skills. And this is where the robots can win, not to mention customization and personalization. Instead of a one-fits-all approach, for example in dining, AI can customize a personalized dining experience for every human. Now those are the benefits of AI and robotics and blue-collar work, but I believe we're not there yet. Robotics isn't perfect enough to replace blue-collar workers, but the innovation we see and the capabilities have me really excited. For example, look at what Miso Robotics is doing in fast food automation, their robot designed to replace restaurant workers called Flippy is adding $20,000 in monthly fast food profits back to the restaurants and it's giving better service quality than humans. On the Miso Robotics investment page, they talk about solving the biggest problem in the trillion-dollar fast food industry, that fast food restaurants can't keep their kitchen staffed. There are 3 million more job openings than workers in the US alone. There's also a 144% annual employee turnover in these restaurants, not to mention minimum wage issues. Robotics in the restaurant industry alone can really change the game for the quality of food that restaurants might be able to invest in with this increased profit margin. Cali Express is a 100% robot-run restaurant in Pasadena, California, but here's an example of the shortcomings of AI in blue-collar work. When I went to their website, I got this notice, due to a building-wide AC outage and the extreme heat, we are temporarily pausing all operations to ensure the comfort and safety of our team and customers. Now, if you didn't have AC, the humans would suffer too, but there's probably even more extreme dangers and risks when there are robots and machines inside a restaurant that need to cool off as they do a lot of complex tasks. I think one of the biggest hurdles in AI taking over blue-collar jobs that we're gonna have to overcome, and we will, is licensure and regulations. For example, to go be a plumber, you have to be a human before you can get a license. These licenses are only handed out to humans, so we're gonna have to change how the service industry works entirely for robotics to be able to take over these jobs. David Shapiro brought up some of these points very well in a recent video of his.

Speaker 2: Let's talk about the job roles, because this is really kind of the core question that a lot of you have asked, which is, what is gonna happen? We can talk about artificial intelligence impact on jobs, but robots are gonna have a fundamentally different impact, even if they're powered by artificial intelligence. You could even think of these as a separate class, because there's a hardware stack, and the affordances of creating a machine that can operate in the same physical space as you and I has just very different constraints and different affordances than a purely digital artificial intelligence. You know, if you have AGI that you can access on the internet via API, that's still different than a robot that can do the same things as a human can do, or better.

Speaker 1: I think the biggest agent of change that will propel AI in blue-collar work will be Elon Musk. With companies like Tesla and the Boring Company, Elon Musk is pushing automation forward. He has Tesla bots assembling Teslas. His vision for AI and robotics goes far beyond the average. And as he pushes to streamline AI in blue-collar work, I think he could single-handedly help change how regulations and licensure work. Depending on what happens in election season, Elon Musk could actually be an influential voice in the US government, shaping our regulations. And if that were to happen, the US could be one of the only countries where AI and blue-collar work grows faster than anyone anticipated. But since right now blue-collar industries are highly regulated for safety, if you wire a house wrong, it could explode. Changing or even relaxing those regulations is an uphill battle. I think that humans will be in the loop in blue-collar work for quite some time, even if let's say a contractor were able to deploy humanoids as workers in his business. We still need that contractor to build rapport with human customers, look over invoices, payments, do the more complex tasks, and oversee the robots. I think white-collar work and the human reasoning and intelligence there that can be easily automated makes those jobs immediately susceptible, and the trades, skilled labor, a little bit less so. But, we're seeing AI advance heavily in skilled trades too, and we're going to continue to see it. There's no stopping the age of AI. I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. What do you think of AI taking over skilled trades and blue-collar jobs? I read every comment, as time permits, I'll respond. It's an honor to get to share this AI age with you, and look ahead to how technology will add abundance to our lives. As always, hit subscribe on my channel here at Julie McCoy, and I'll see you down the next AI Rabbit Hole.