me_irl

The potential for water damage makes robots less appealing there for the near future.

Waterproofing electronics and robotics is pretty much already a solved problem. And, really, any general purpose labor robot would already have to be waterproofed because, you know, what if it rains?

That said, plumbing repair is indeed likely to be one of the most automation-resistant jobs out there, along with most other renovation and repair jobs on existing buildings. Constructing new buildings could be automated much more easily, because you can control the environment the robots are working in and design the building around what the robots can and can't do.

A new construction plumbing robot, for example, can be guaranteed to easily traverse the construction site because the construction site was built for it, and it only needs the tools and skills to deal with one or two types of piping systems -- the types used in new construction.

A plumbing repair robot, though, would be much more challenging:

• It needs to be able to access all kinds of places in all kinds of buildings -- cluttered basements, crawlspaces, attics, inside walls, underground, etc. And to get into those places, it will have to traverse every kind of obstacle imaginable ... and quite a few that the engineers never imagined. ("What do you mean the only way into and out of the basement is by climbing a rope ladder?")

• It needs to have the tools and skills to deal with every type of pluming system -- PVC, copper, steel, PEX, etc, etc. (Including systems that use a combination of any and all of those.)

• It needs to be able to diagnose and address problems, not just assemble things. Unclogging a drain, finding where a leak is coming from, diagnosing a malfunctioning toilet... It needs to be able to figure out all those kinds of jobs in addition to being able to assemble and install things.

They'll probably get there eventually ... but I'm betting that's one of the last sorts of jobs that robots will take over. Not that being a plumber will save you, though. Not at all. As many other jobs are lost, more and more people will be looking for and competing for the few jobs that are left. Being already in the job, already an incumbent with experience, will be to your advantage, but it won't completely insulate you from your employer laying you off and replacing you with cheap, desperate workers who are willing to do it for minimum wage as long as it keeps them off the streets. And then, to continue working, you'll also need to lower your standards and become one of the desperate, willing to work at minimum wage ... because once we get into a situation where there are far more workers than there are jobs, every job becomes a minimum wage job.