So you can buy one robot that does everything and stays busy all day, or a bunch of robots that each do one thing and otherwise stay in closets.
If you have a factory, idle equipment costs you money. Right now our factories have only specialized robots, but they still have lots of people because it's too expensive to do the remaining tasks with specialized robots. We need general-purpose workers for the tasks we're not doing 24 hours every day.
This makes general-purpose robots look like the cheapest option for many tasks, but that could be offset if they cost a lot more. But the more of anything we build, the cheaper the thing ends up being. A very large number of identical robots will probably end up costing less than smaller numbers of lots of special purpose robots.
> If you have a factory, idle equipment costs you money
True, but that isn't the whole story. Where I live most factories have their own snow removal equipment even though it is only used a few days per year and sits idle the rest of the time. While it costs money to have it sit idle, it costs even more to have the whole factory idle until the snow melts. (or the people you hire get around to your factory).
> Right now our factories have only specialized robots, but they still have lots of people because it's too expensive to do the remaining tasks with specialized robots.
And when they decide people are too expensive they replace them not with general purpose robots but more special purpose robots.
> A very large number of identical robots will probably end up costing less than smaller numbers of lots of special purpose robots.
Maybe. It isn't clear. A general purpose robot could be more expensive - I only need one while I "need" one vacuum robot per floor meaning that special purpose robot scales better. And that vacuum robot is also a lot simpler meaning it will be cheaper to own 2 than to have 1 general purpose robot.
The question then is the general purpose robot cheaper because you only have 1 instead of an army of special purpose robots. We do not know (today).
If you have a factory, idle equipment costs you money. Right now our factories have only specialized robots, but they still have lots of people because it's too expensive to do the remaining tasks with specialized robots. We need general-purpose workers for the tasks we're not doing 24 hours every day.
This makes general-purpose robots look like the cheapest option for many tasks, but that could be offset if they cost a lot more. But the more of anything we build, the cheaper the thing ends up being. A very large number of identical robots will probably end up costing less than smaller numbers of lots of special purpose robots.