...you count starving low-skill workers to death.

https://old.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1e1b3nq/robot_painters/

Robot painters


I want one!  Painting (commercial job) is the only job I've witnessed a man literally beg not to have to do.

>>Robot painters

Seems like the technology wouldn't be too far off to have something that takes exterior or interior photos, you select which colors go on which surfaces, and the robot goes to town.

At the high end, painting is a skilled job. The good ones are really good and can do it all (lacquer, paint). I see this replacing all the apprentices or random unskilled painters so that one skilled painter and his machine will equal a crew.

That being the case, how then does the apprentice become a master painter?

If you can have a robot painter, you can have a robot power washer.  Although that takes some fun out of it.

Things stop being fun at anything over 30 hours per week once you're being paid to do it.

>>painting is a skilled job

I have a friend who has a painting company and they do some amazing work. Definitely higher end stuff. He was a bit slow during a month last winter and offered to come give us a quote. For an entryway, hallway, living room, kitchen (including cabinets) and dining room he quoted $17K. And this was 2 years ago so I assume it would be more now. And I am sure there was a bit of a friendly discount.

We painted things ourselves instead. Tried to use the highest quality products we could get so we didn't just go with the cheapest Home Depot paint. There is a HUGE difference in what we did ourselves and what he could have done. The cabinets are already showing their age, the edges on the ceiling aren't the crispest, etc. We did a decent job I think but the level of a skilled painter is definitely noticeable. The $1000 cost to DIY vs. the $17K cost made it worth it for us to take accept our deficiencies though.