Hi. I am creating a scifi rpg world. There are 4 levels. One of the levels involves human workers. The problem I am having is justifying these human workers. Between matter replicators, AI designers/engineers, and intelligent/non-intelligent androids, who needs humans? The one idea I came up with was that the humans could sell their brain power to be used by corporate AIs as a sort of massive parallel processing thing (in exchange for access to better VR systems). Does anyone have any other ideas for what these human workers could be doing?
Create more humans.
How good are your droids? The main reason humans have always been valued over droids is flexibility. Often droids will get stuck in a rut or be unable to make a decision when new unanticipated information comes through. Read the I, Robot series of short stories for some good thoughts on this.
Also, the other main thing - humans will do things that are completely unexpected and often not logical. Such as giving themselves up, dying for a cause, etc. Thigns droids wouldn’t do unless they are very advanced (think Blade Runner).
Cheap labor?
Love?
Swim?
Marc
But quite possibly they could walk through the bottom of the water, if properly insulated.
Walk a thousand miles if need be.
Didn’t Data do just that? Though he got water in his servos…
I’m sorry, error, error, error, Data is not a real robot, he is just a big silly. We are talking Asimovian style robots. Or at least I am. 
Wait, did the OP mean androids or Asmovian robots?
If the androids are programmed with some equivalent to Asimov’s Three Laws, the answer is simple : bad things. Need someone to lie, cheat, steal, kill, smuggle, etc ? Get a human. If that’s too dark, make the androids programmed to always obey the law; humans would be useful to do things the law doesn’t cover properly, or to circumvent unjust laws.
For that matter, there’s a great deal of overlap; for example, if abortion is illegal in this future society, a human doctor could perform one, crime or not; an android couldn’t.
If you want to be more whimsical, they could all be doing makework, pretending what they do matters.
Or, they could be producing status symbols; "This rug woven solely by human labor ! Untouched by android hands ! "
I’m sorry. He didn’t specify, but I tend to limit it somewhat to Asimovian robots automatically.
hangs head I am ashamed.
Meh, the Asmovian thing didn’t even cross my mind 'til you mentioned it, but I’m glad you did. Kinda puts a new angle on the question.
Hurt other humans? I mean, Asimov robots wouldn’t be making Soylent Green (Or would they? Are corpses still considered human?) or running the mortuaries/crematoriums.
Or perhaps the humans are doing things that are “harming humans” that most people wouldn’t perceive as hamful. A robot working in a coal power plant would see that over its lifespan it had contributed to pollution and general environmental destruction, and thus had broken Asimov’s laws by increasing the cancer rate or something. In a similar way, robots could refuse to work in areas that have harmful chemical byproducts, because the results of their work will break their programming.
Maybe the humans could be making money on the side by being a renewable source of body parts. If DNA can be manipulated to the point where human beings can regenerate internal organs, a person could make good money by selling a kidney or lung, taking a few years to grow it back, and then selling another one. It might be cheaper than growing them in labs.
Hmm. Well, I am still in the planning stage but I doubt I will use Asimov’s 3 laws. I picture the unsentient androids as doing menial work and the sentient ones as owned and programmed by the corporations. I guess I could make all the humans middle managers lol!
Sorry, that wasn’t very clear. All androids would be owned and programmed by the corporations. Therefore they would be programmed to stay within the law. With matter replication, androids are cheap to make. On another board someone suggested the service industry for the humans but I would imagine a corporation would prefer cheap androids for that.
Heal themselves?
Or maybe due to an odd legal fluke in a machine-friendly society, there are pretty stringent laws about working conditions for AIs (maybe the jobs required just too much smarts to be done by a completely non-sentient AI), and preventing AI abuse or exploitation. Maybe the jobs are too menial, or stressful, or degrading for a “civilized” society to give to created beings (AIs) in good conscience.
Actual human workers, however, technically aren’t covered…
Hey, it wouldn’t be the first (or the worst) stupid, illogical law ever passed for the sake of “common morals.” 
Offhand I would say that they are the market for what ever the androids are making. With matter replicators , and a droid workforce , you have effectively created a complicated economy.
Maybe you can look at it this way , to make the droids using the matter replicators , you need some sort of mass. So you have a bunch of humans mining unobtanium and others crafting the templates for what the matter replicators push out.
For some tasks , Droids are perferable because they work 24/7 doing one thing and one thing only, but for other tasks they become maitanence nightmares requiring frequent shop time , which makes humans more viable economical to corporations.
Declan
The law thing might work. Imagine a huge national problem with unemployed, out of work, homeless people cast adrift by the people who make cheap intelligent machines. A law is passed requiring companies have a certain # of humans per robot. A person who quits is still counted for a full year after he quits. Companies now hire people at the absolute minimum to spend all day moving rocks from one side of the building to another. Or counting sand.
Maybe that’s too silly for the story but the image of shabby people drudging back and forth completing these mindless tasks is kinda scary. And ironic.
Or maybe it’s just nepotism at work. These are all the children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews of the board. With so few jobs to do the people in power make sure they find jobs for their people to do. Token jobs. Answering phones, making copies. Sure the execs could make robots do it, but then their kid will be out of work.
Thus to answer the question in the title.
Q. What can a human do that an android can’t?
A. Have connections.