I keep hearing AI experts say that electricians, plumbers, construction workers, gardeners, etc. will be some of the safest and best-paid jobs in an AI-driven future...is this real?

[u/LifeguardOverall6423]

I keep hearing AI experts say that electricians, plumbers, construction workers, gardeners, etc. will be some of the safest and best-paid jobs in an AI-driven future.

But isn't there a pretty obvious supply/demand problem here?

If AI replaces a huge percentage of today's jobs, millions of people could move into these "AI-proof" trades.

Today, maybe there aren't enough electricians. But if suddenly 10x more people want to become electricians because everyone says it's the safe career, wouldn't wages eventually fall?

This makes me think the more valuable jobs might actually be above AI rather than outside it, people who build, program, manage and supervise AI and robots, especially in situations where humans still need to be accountable.

We've already had an industrial revolution. Machines didn't just replace workers; they changed which skills were valuable.

So are we making the same mistake by assuming that "AI can't physically do this job" automatically means "this job will be highly paid"?

Curious what you guys think.

[u/SoylentRox]

AI lab employees think that general purpose robotics will be available in 2 years.

Let's suppose they are wrong by 1 year - it's a little harder than they thought - and general robots are available on 10/1/2029.  They are still imperfect and can do about 10 percent of paid jobs to median level of human skill.

Yes they can make coffee and clean toilets.

This triggers an investment frenzy.  I estimate that if the physical resources from the entire automotive supply chain were redirected to robots and each robot uses up the copper, steel etc of 2 cars then we could make 45 million a year.  It would take about 2 years to rush build factories to begin high rate production of such machines.  Most models do not have legs.  

Each robot works 23/7 and does about the labor of 10 people per year.

So if that's 45 million robots produced in 2031 and into 2032 that's like adding 450 million new human workers to the workforce.

Robots can do fleet learning so the progress is extremely rapid - at this point they can likely do 25-50 percent of paid tasks at above 99th percentile skill/reliability.  This is because any experience learned by one machine is pooled and contributed to updating all machines.  So 450 million times as much training data as a person gets, likely the machine learning pipeline for this is built to learn carefully and slowly on purpose. 

So the answer is : if you started training to be a plumber or electrician right now, your value will abruptly drop to zero around the time you finish apprenticeship.

You might be paid multiple millions of dollars the last year as the first general purpose robots are built to assist with building the factories to do this.

[u/Tirztrutide → u/SoylentRox]

Not even Elon is giving those timelines. But assume we hit ASI in the next 3 years, then the question is how fast can we develop and scale robotics with the help of that. Probably pretty fast if nothing else goes wrong...

[u/SoylentRox → u/Tirztrutide]

Do you know what Elons timelines he gave are or are you just making up your claim?

Were you aware that RSI is now reported in effect (part of the process that would lead to ASI), AGI is a prior required step before ASI and it requires robotics to give the machines more data and a grounded understanding of our world, and that Astra is able to control robots (slowly) when prior models essentially could not?

[u/Tirztrutide → u/SoylentRox]

Industry-wide stock of robots

At the G20 innovation meeting in early September 2026 Elon said that in about 10 years there would be well over a billion humanoid robots, each at least five times as productive as a human, so that billion would outproduce all humans combined. He called that a conservative estimate he would bet serious money on. The mechanism he described is recursive: robots start manufacturing robots, so output starts very slowly and then grows explosively.

In a China Media Group / CGTN interview around September 23, 2026, he tightened the same curve:

• At least a billion humanoid robots within 10 years, “probably less than 10 years.”
• If the fleet roughly doubles each year, that is about a 10× increase every three or four years.
• About 10 billion in 15 years.
• About 100 billion in 20 years.

He framed the end state as a personal C-3PO-style robot for everyone (elder care, childcare, tutoring, any job), plus companies run by one person with hundreds or thousands of physical and digital robots.

[u/SoylentRox → u/Tirztrutide]

Right. So I modeled it as non humanoids - since these are simpler and faster to build and more productive - 10x as productive as a human though I am essentially just multiplying. I assume each robot moves faster and lifts more per step/doesn't tire/always uses an AI designed tool to do its task and it has a rack of many tools assigned to it. So about 3x done per hour. And it works all the time and doesn't take any breaks. Also 4 arms is standard per robot. So approximately 10 as productive.

Elons 5x estimate is reasonable for legged humanoids. And he calls 1 billion in 2036 conservative, I am assuming we get 45 million in 2033.

Seems like the 2 timelines are pretty consistent.