An artist programs a robot to lay out pretty patterns on the beach :  Robot sand artist turns beach into giant canvas – New Scientist

This got me to thinking about the growing concern that as robots and AI systems become smarter and more mechanically capable, they will replace more and more people in a greater range of jobs. On the other hand, perhaps by using a robot assistant as this artist does, a person can accomplish much more than they would on their own. This in turn would greatly expand the types of products and services an individual or a small company can provide.

Automation reduces the labor needed to provide a particular product or service. Along with economies of scale and other factors, this has been key to increasing productivity and raising our standard of living. New types of products and services have always arisen to absorb the labor freed up as older industries became more automated.

There’s no reason this process cannot continue. For example, instead of an artist and a robot scraping sand, an entrepreneur and a fast-moving, intelligent robot mower could cut all the lawns in the neighborhood in a day at low-cost while doing enough lawns in total to make good money.

There is essentially an infinity of services and products that can be created and sold. Robots will allow many that were too expensive or impractical before to become affordable. Robots should be seen as partnering with people, not replacing them.