Falsehoods that computer programmers believe about bricklaying:
\ bricks are all the same shape and density
\ bricks have flat sides
\ mortar batches are mixed to the same consistency
\ a batch of mortar has the same consistency over time
\ bricks are laid in a climate controlled environment without changes in sunlight, precipitation, or humidity
\ mortar solidifies immediately and bricks do not move once laid
…I’m stretching* it a bit, but you get the point. The linked article gets to these points* towards the end, too.
We don’t have robot brickies for the same reason we don’t have robot chefs. Kitchens are all different and a general purpose cooking robot can’t adapt the same way a human can to either a dynamic environment or dynamic raw materials. Robots win when you change the playing field: cake factories producing one thing in bulk in an environment designed from the ground up for machines. Robobricky will happily churn out 6x4 prefab panels in a factory, but it’s much harder to make that process portable enough to bring to a building site.
*Puns not intended: stretchers are lengthways bricks and pointing is the process of smoothing the mortar in rhe gaps.
Simplifying a complex problem to look like an easily solvable problem is something that businesses and engineers are really, really good at. It's one of the reasons we leave people behind at the margins all the time, and it's one of the reasons that a thousand failed brick laying robots will be built.
\ bricks are all the same shape and density
\ bricks have flat sides
\ mortar batches are mixed to the same consistency
\ a batch of mortar has the same consistency over time
\ bricks are laid in a climate controlled environment without changes in sunlight, precipitation, or humidity
\ mortar solidifies immediately and bricks do not move once laid
…I’m stretching* it a bit, but you get the point. The linked article gets to these points* towards the end, too.
We don’t have robot brickies for the same reason we don’t have robot chefs. Kitchens are all different and a general purpose cooking robot can’t adapt the same way a human can to either a dynamic environment or dynamic raw materials. Robots win when you change the playing field: cake factories producing one thing in bulk in an environment designed from the ground up for machines. Robobricky will happily churn out 6x4 prefab panels in a factory, but it’s much harder to make that process portable enough to bring to a building site.
*Puns not intended: stretchers are lengthways bricks and pointing is the process of smoothing the mortar in rhe gaps.