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Could AI be the next big thing without impacting the economy and labour market?
Computers revolutionized the construction industry. CAD software makes it far easier to draw buildings and share the drawings. Phones makes communications vastly easier. Instead of a worker getting stuck or having to physically find someone they can make a video call. Manuals and documents are freely available online. Online shopping makes order parts cheaper and easier while allowing builders to press prices. Accounting, scheduling, recruiting sales and other supporting activities are easier with computers. Even on the construction site computers control machines. A modern truck is full of software.
Yet the productivity in the construction industry has flat lined and is if anything declining. Land prices can take some blame but renovating a building has not become cheaper.
Could we see similar effects with AI? A company in 2035 has completely automated customer service, AI drafts contracts, does sales and codes. We may have self driving cars and humanoid robots. Yet we might see barely 2% GDP growth and no real boom in productivity. Why has the tech sector revolutionized work without dramatical increases in productivity and can the results be better in the coming 20 years?
Construction productivity hasn't flatlined. Construction workers have cheap and easy access to power tools that significantly outperform the plug in tools of 2000. Anyways your other points don't really make sense.
Construction was likely largely switched to CAD by 2000
Except for trainees, who make up a minority of construction workers, they should be able to do their jobs without calling for help.
Not necessarily considered as inputs when computing labor productivity for construction.
Your unsourced chart is also worth less than the pixels it's printed on, unless you can provide measurement methodology. Looking up the numbers published by BLS https://www.bls.gov/productivity/highlights/construction-labor-productivity.htm shows an example of garbage in garbage out. It shows a huge spike in productivity before 2008 which your chart doesn't. Unless your methodology is perfect, the number likely reflects macroeconomic trends more than the actual efficiency of each worker.
That got me thinking. Even if a AI robot couldn't be out there swinging a hammer with me a camera that can take in the situation and tell me what to do, pre order the parts,, then walk me through through the work would be really hand in construction, and working on vehicles. Probably cut my 5 trips to Home Depot to replace the water heater to 2. Or that time I wired in heater take into the wrong run of Romex and now it only turns on when the downstairs kitchen light is turned off...
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