4 Day Week

I've seen an awful lot of pre-fabricated buildings in the country (some of which I would regard as complete eye-sores) Evidently some farmers aren't fussy Annie. In fact I think some would willingly pull down a hard to maintain old barn if they could.
What most of them are doing of course is converting barns into holiday lets, and sticking the cows etc in prefab buildings

gillybob, yes, humans and robots do work well together at present. However, AI robotics technology is becoming more powerful all the time.

Computers are now able to write software for themselves in recent months, and it is believed that many thousands of programmers and software engineers will lose their jobs in the near future because of that technology.

That is the future many believe and the issue the TUC has raised

For those who may not have seen the YouTube robotics video link on the previous page i have placed the link again below. As anyone can see those robots could be used in large and small businesses. You can imagine one of them stacking the shelves in your local supermarket.

Link follows:-
youtu.be/rVlhMGQgDkY

Top class brickies can earn top dollar and save some to tide them over the winter when work is slow...or cultivate another stream of income when it's too bad to work outside on site. Plastering or similar.

Those robots aren't nearly quick enough.

*gillybob*. hare-brained not hair-brained.

Thank you for pointing out my grammatical error Gabriella it’s much appreciated and highly relevant to the thread ... and every other irrelevant emoticon .

Gillybob (and anyone else who might be interested)
I have just read a very interesting article in the New Statesman, which seems to be reinforcing your opinion that robots and human beings can work well together. Paper edition so I can't, unfortunately, send you a link.

it is about small robots called "cobots" who work together with people in workplaces, mainly factories and packing plants admittedly, but working well together.

One very hopeful example was of a company in Denmark, which makes adhesives. They (quote) " installed 42 cobots over a period of 18 months. In that time, the company logged a reduction in costs while productivity increased." "And with increased productivity and quality, order numbers surged - to the point that 50 new jobs were created, in the company's logistics, marketing and finance departments." (unquote)

I think this is a really positive story. The cobot company is called 'Robots of London' so sounds like it is British.

Good to see something positive (and detailed!) about robots and people co-working, Ilovecheese. In fields where things need to be moved around a lot, and data sent around the works and to and from customers and suppliers, they can increase productivity and decrease costs (once the place is set up for them). There are still many areas which rely on face-to-face contact, though, where they can't replace a human.

If I were in a care home, I don't think I would be very happy on being looked after by a machine. You can't ask them how their children are getting on at school, or what they think of today's lunch menu.

Today in the Independent online:
"Robot bricklayers to be deployed in Brexit Britain as developers grapple with skill shortage."