Human workers have been displaced by technology since the first industrial revolution began 300 years ago; today, increasingly sophisticated social robots are in development and could potentially replace many (human) workers. Many tasks which have hitherto been the reserve of humans can now be performed better, quicker, and more efficiently by social robots or generative AI. It may therefore appear that human skills and human labour are less valuable than ever before.  However, I argue that the advances in AI and social robotics may actually make human-designed and handmade items more valuable by comparison. I argue that we already value handmade items more highly than their mass-produced counterparts simply because they were made by humans; I offer three reasons for this higher valuation. Firstly, we value the time and effort of a human worker; secondly, we admire the human’s skill and creativity, and the thought they put into their work, and thirdly, handmade items are often more variable in their form, and rarity increases value.  I note that although social robots may be able to produce rare or unique items, we will nevertheless continue to value human-made items and human-provided services, because we value the time, effort, creativity, skill, and thoughtfulness of human workers, but not AI / social robots. This means that, in at least some fields, the introduction of AI / social robots will not devalue human labour; instead, human labour will seem all the more valuable in comparison to robot ‘labour’