* You don't have the tools or supplies on hand (just let that pipe keep flooding your basement until an amazon delivery arrives!), and many of them are expensive and sufficiently specialized that a homeowner might only need them 2-3 times in a lifetime.
* You don't have any training for using the tools if you had them.
* You might not be physically capable of doing the task even if you had the tools and new how to use them, you might easily injure yourself (or others) or make the problem worse, etc.
Think of it like youtube - for most household repair tasks, you can probably already find a youtube video of someone explaining how to do the fix. Do roofers and plumbers and electricians still exist, even though a youtube video can show anyone how to do most of those tasks? AGI glasses seem like they might make less of an impact for most homeowners than youtube has.
* Every time I've encountered a home owner with a burst pipe or flooding scenario their immediate problem was lack of knowledge on they different ways to shut off the water supply. And if the problem is something as simple as lack of a wrench then you could always go get one faster than an emergency plumber could get onsite.
* The AGI glasses don't need to solve 100% of problems to be disruptive to the skilled trades. No reason they can't refer you to a human specialist. An (outsourced) human could join your AR glasses session (for a cost) and see if they can provide more instruction to both you and the AGI or if referral to a local human was needed. A Google supplied augmented reality AGI could charge users for specialized assistants AND then charge human service providers for higher placement in the referral listing.
* Local tool rental is a common thing, no reason hardware stores couldn't function as a same day fulfilment instead of amazon. And a lot of tools are cheaper to buy even if they only get used once than paying for a single service call.
* Re: tool training - I'm sure the AGI could recommend approaches to avoid tooling where possible. For example recommending shark bite connectors instead of brazing pipes, etc. But yeah, some people just won't have the dexterity to use a hammer. The issue of being able to plaster or finish drywall nicely that vidarh pointed out in another post is also a good example. It might be a boon to the local AR/AGI enhanced handman.
* Agree on roofers and electricians... where the possibility of self harm is high these scenarios are too risky without basic training. Maybe you'd have to get a DIY electricity safety license to unlock that ability in the AGI. Or maybe only apprentice electricians can use the electrical AGI, the result would still be less need for master electricians.
* Re: YouTube - As a DIY homeowner I love youtube but having to wade through hundreds of videos until I find the one video that applies to my scenario is exhausting. An AGI would already be trained on much of that knowledge. It'd lower the barrier. Again it doesn't eliminate the need for the trades but it does disrupt them further than youtube already has.
Think of it more like adding a self-checkout line to the trades. It helps in a lot of scenarios, the casher job role doesn't go away but a lot of people are unemployed or making less money all of a sudden.
[meme time]
Oh god, oh fuck, we're going full Manna.
[/meme time]
https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
For those have have not read Manna, this is a huge portion of the premise of the story that AI helmets turn us into automatons that allow the AI to further automate our jobs until we are all unemployed and destitute.
I hadn't seen manna before, thanks for sharing. There are some good thoughts there. The bit about girls liking Manna because it doesn't hit on them was excellent. The dad character had some good points too.
The examples do seem a bit over the top (likely to drive home the premise). But honestly the verbosity seemed excellent for a new hire scenario. As long as it dynamically scaled down the verbosity of the instructions to match what was needed by each individual user would it really be awful if the managers got replaced?
It is a fine line, the tech being used to add to our knowledge vs making us dumb robots. If it could be kept to teaching, certain types of management, and gamified checklists it wouldn't be the downfall of the human race. However I could easily see it getting to the point where customers are talking to the AGI mounted on your head instead of you and that is scary.
I mean, this is OpenAI today "By using our product you are training our product to be you, please insert $$$ to avoid this scenario"
I think you nailed part of the problem here. For no less that 30% of the population the first step in the googles would be. Wear googles and go to gym for at least 6 months, along with diet guidance. "You are about to eat a snickers bar, this will delay your air conditioner repair by 16hrs"
I once tried to show a white collar friend how to spray for bugs himself, he needed a break after hand pumping the chemical sprayer. Im pretty sure in the end he just paid someone anyway.
Sure, it'll be one more thing that eats into bits and pieces of what we need trained labour for, but it won't eliminate it.
Some examples:
Something goes wrong even though you did what it told you to do, but it didn't account for something specific to your situation, but the fine print says you were supposed to provide info on any non-standard circumstances, but you aren't qualified to know what needs to be said.
Or it asks you to do something surprisingly difficult that you don't know is outside your limit until you're in the thick of it - like holding something down with a lot of pressure and your hand slips causing damage or injury.
Or you do the whole thing and everything seems fine, and then later it breaks and causes damage/injury, the cause is linked back to your work so now fault needs to be assigned/split between you and the AI.
