The science of automation

The latest book I’ve been reading is titled The Best Australian Science Writing 2017, edited by Michael Slezak. There are plenty of modern science essays in this book, but the one that knocked on my mind was titled The machine generation, by Bianca Nogrady. She said that the “robots in our contemporary world are mechanical workhorses helping behind the curtain to make out industries safer and more efficient and economical. And yes, they are taking our jobs.”

Nogrady had been to the Sydney University’s Future Dairy research facility and watched cows milked by robots, not by humans. That’s not just out there in all dairy farms, yet, but it might not take much longer. Nogrady also wrote about automation in coal mine trucks – robotically driven, not human driven. She quoted Dr Carla Boehl from the Curtin University Western Australian School of Mines: “At the end of the day you end up with one person in the control room who can supervise or drive 20 trucks at the same time.”

Patrick, the logistics company, and the Australian Centre for Field Robotics, had joined up to test out the automatic “straddle carriers” which worked on the wharves in Brisbane (2005) and Sydney (now - 2017), cutting the numbers of staff in half. According to Torres, at BHP Billiton, maintenance people will still be needed, but their position will be very different in 15 year’s time.

And now, according to Nogrady, the science has taken on surgery. Robotic-surgery has been in Australia since 2003, but the next step is happening. Recently robotic-assisted surgery has helped surgeons to operate on men removing their cancerous prostate. The surgeon works through a 3D console, away from the patient, yet s/he still operates on them.

The thing that really turned my mind was the mention of autonomous vehicles. Nogrady quoted Professor Mary-Anne Williams from the Innovations and Enterprise Research Laboratory at the University of Technology in Sydney: “Would you be willing to put your two-year-old in an autonomous vehicle to be delivered to day care?” I would have never had to think of anything like this! My son and daughter are now in their mid-30s – decades after I took them to day care: I can’t imagine a two-year-old travelling on their own in an autonomous vehicle!

Nogrady’s essay is astounding. It’s readable. It’s in the future. At least, that’s how I see it. Perhaps those just now in their childhood might grow up with this being their everyday environment, but it’s not mine. Nogrady said that, for the cows getting robotically milked, “ignorance is indeed bliss”. For me, that’s the same way it will be.