Re: exactly the sort of thing we want machines to do.
"The only thing that ultimately justifies the retention of human labour for many repetitive jobs is that the supply of human labour is currently significantly cheaper than the machine"
I'd also add that for many jobs humans are more adaptable, both at accommodating slightly different conditions and at slight physical changes. As a (rather dated now) example, a large manufacturer of servers had a very automated plant. Servers shuttled around on an elaborate conveyor system that was fed motherboards from several automated assembly lines. In the middle of each PCB assembly line sat a handful of human workers to insert the electrolytic capacitors.
This looked odd to us, after all, automated through hole insertion equipment had existed for decades at this point. We asked the plant manager why they used humans (honestly, we were expecting to hear it was a labor union thing). The manager chuckled, and said that he had tried every robotic insertion technology available, but due to the different sizes of parts, the variance in packaging, etc, the best performing solution was three Bravarian women.
ETA: I guess my long winded story still boils down to your argument, it's cheaper (because you need to spend huge/ infinite quantities of money of an off the shelf robot doesn't meet your needs).
Biting the hand that feeds IT
