Today's Word Is Tier

Today's word is tier. Professor Wobble: a tier is a level, and the robot study used four. Bitsy: four of what? Where a robot can work: nowhere, a fenced cell, a warehouse, an open street. Pip: half of all physical work sits in the fenced-cell tier. Bitsy: open street? Under two percent (1.9%). Mort: and a computer program did the grading of all 7,594 tasks, not a person, as the authors note. Brought to you by the number four.

The robot study's numbers were produced by an AI: Anthropic's economists had Claude rate 7,594 physical tasks from the Labor Department's job database on four tiers by where a robot can do them, from a fenced factory cell to an open street; half of physical work sits in the fenced-cell tier and only 1.9% in the open-street tier, and the authors note the ratings come from a model rather than observed deployments, so AI-driven robots could leapfrog the scale and make their 40-year projection far too slow.

Starring

PipProfessor WobbleBitsyMort