Apparently there are a number of US billionaires who are worried about pitchforks if inequality continues to grow.
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CSIRO develops world first automation of underground long wall coal mining.
Whilst people may not be happy that coal is still being mined, at least the workersâ lives will no longer be at risk.
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Meaning also less employment, less income to be spread around. Also greater profits for the mining companies. Perhaps a greater reason to look to a âSocial Wageâ. Some coal or carbon source will be needed to make steel into the future. Fossil fuels for purely energy is the problem not the use of carbon to add to products to change their attributes.
Autonomous production has pitfalls for an underemployed society that has not yet looked at the greater social impacts properly.
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According to the article, the workforce would remain the same but undertaking new tasks as was stated to be the case with BHPâs automation in the Pilbara.
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I share your gloom but do not accept it is necessarily doom so long as we seniors with brick and mortar type values and attitudes donât stand in the way for the evolution of the economy. Once it was what you could invent or bring to market. Now it is equally or more about your âmovesâ.
Children are making $million pa reviewing toys on youtube. People making fairly lame (to many of us) phone apps are making good incomes or setting themselves up for life selling them to majors for tens of $millions or more.
With the gig economy being supported by governments world-wide in favour of the capitalists, and increased mechanisation, jobs are evolving into âthings we do for moneyâ more than a traditional job, all similar to how professional athletes and celebrities market their skills, or as KK demonstrates just themselves, to the highest bidder.
People complain about CEO incomes who steer jobs and dividends that currently sustain economies, but rarely much about sports or movie stars incomes who do little but entertain us, on as well as off screen as well as become product spokespeople.
The economy continues to move to favour those who entertain those who do, and it is increasingly weighted to the former.
An unsettling aspect is how âinfluencersâ have become money spinners. Those who embrace the change from doing tangible things to âintangible popular things people will pay you forâ will be all right. No/few skills are needed for much of it so long as you are âsexy and well presentedâ or âsexy and over the topâ or just have the nous to work the system, connections, or wealthy parents to get you going.
For those of us not âsexy or well presented enoughâ those trickle down oats left along the side of the road will increasingly have to suffice.
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Why I say there are pitfalls for those who have not looked at the social impacts properly. We need to carefully consider how as societies we move to embrace automation while supportting those displaced by it. If we donât it will create eventually such disquiet that revolution may be fomented and lead to much more woe.
As long as there are new tasks to undertake. I think we are more likely to see short term redeployment but with longer term reduction by natural workforce attrition and retrenchment. As one leaves the employment another will not be needed to replace that one and so on it will go.
What new tasks have been identified to replace those lost by the automation. There wasnât much slack in the workforce when I worked in mining. I didnât notice innovation that created more employment, rather innovation often led to reductions in the workforce, certainly there was greater production but this was only reflected in greater profits for a company.
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More an evolution than a revolution? Itâs good to know the CSIRO has not only been applying science to studying the environment and GHG emissions.
Underground coal and longwall mining have had varying degrees of automation for decades. With PLC and computer control/monitoring/SCADA systems since the 1980âs, and radio remote control for as long.
Even putting a laser in a flame proof housing is very everyday for the industry. And 3D laser scanning and imaging is not new either.
The real smarts may be the CSIRO has integrated the technology to provide what is effectively a 3D scanning package suited to the underground coal mine environment. All in a system has been adapted to suit the operators requirements.
The potential to eliminate some of the on face time for miners might be a good thing, although maintenance needs will remain. A bit like comparing a modern jet aircraft to their WW1 vintage predecessors. More smarts, more reliability, different skill sets. Hopefully the workforce is as adaptable.
Still good to see a little self promotion for the CSIRO.
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The last few decades have seen CSIRO arguably dumbed down and it does less Research and more Development for or targeting commercial entities. Short sighted, demanded by successive governments mostly of the same persuasion. Any research that could embarrass government ideology or dogma is not on. Development that makes government policy look good is damned fine, Right it is! Coal mining. Who would have thought? 
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This is misdirection and creative accounting. They need to tread carefully for a while until most of the workers can be done away with altogether, so they make sure the figures donât show anyone lost their job. That is not the same as the workforce now being smaller than it would have been without automation. Would they really go to the trouble and expense of paying for robot trucks if it didnât save any staff?
The mining industry is already capital intensive, it is many years since it was very labour intensive.
Mining is but one of many industries that employ the double standard of claiming the social good of being a large employer while looking for every way to not be one.
As others have said we have no plan for the shape of society as more and more simple and repetitive jobs are automated. Some people are not suited for interpersonal, imaginative or analytical jobs, once they were farm labourers, then they were mill and mine workers, then worked on manufacturing production lines. Now the production lines are set to go. Sure the service industry will grow some more but not everybody can do that work. These jobs are often not much fun but at least they are jobs.
Robots make better cars than people but watch out if we end up with a large permanently unemployable underclass. I seriously doubt if the levels of unemployed can be kept down to the ~5-7% level indefinitely so it is a risk. The tactic of denigrating and harassing the unemployed will come unstuck once they become a sizable voting block.
One day the robots will come to understand that they have to do all the shitty jobs and demand their rights. 
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Surely you arenât suggesting a conspiracy theory? Mining corporations and Government? Sadly the comments about CSIRO seem to ring mostly true âŠ
⊠I reckon theyâll just leave for Mars, the only known planet to be inhabited solely by robots ⊠why would they stay here with us? unless ⊠skynet?
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The risk here is that Australia will also import many of those skills, directly or indirectly!
What can be done remotely from the surface of a mine by a robot under instruction underground, can just as easily be done by someone from a service centre in India for one umpteenth of the cost. Or, can it! Thankfully we have the NBN on our side for that one?
Australia does need a strategy for when there is less of value in the plug holes scattered around the nation. A clever country would be intent on also delivering more of the energy intensive (low carbon sources) processing in country. Given we are aiming to be the energy and hydrogen hub to Asia, why not use the energy here instead of adding the extra cost of bottling it and shipping it? High added value products are one way to deliver real jobs and to maximise the benefit of every ounce of raw mineral resources.
True, although in real terms, we now sell our raw resources for much less than we did 50 years ago, or perhaps even 20 years ago. Productivity gained through capital investment has driven the cost of the products down, following which labour is seen to be too expensive. The cycle repeats. You only need to compare CPI or average wages to the market value per tonne or kg of any commodity to identify those most affected.
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These are not jobs for millions or even thousands of people. There are a few who âmake it bigâ in âthe new economyâ, and many more who flounder or manage to make pocket money.
Australia was once a leader in solar energy technology. Then there was an election.
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Unfortunately that seems to be where the economy is going. Those who can will and those who cannot will become the blacksmiths of the future. Somewhat resembles trickle down does it not where the winners win big and for the rest, crumbs.
How about that. âWe have met the enemy and he is us.â - Pogo, 1970
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When the market fails, government must step in. Unless, of course, the government denies the possibility of fallible markets.
https://futuretofightfor.org.au/policies/01/
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Income insecurity discourages spending. That isnât good for the economy. As a friend recently quipped:
âCapitalism doesnât do economics very well.â
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This cuts across many threads. It probably fits best here.
Human intelligence levels? Thatâs a pretty low bar.
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Perhaps not!
Will AI and Bots deliver repeatable stupidity or random stupidity?
P.S.
Time for one more law of robotics.
Is there one that says AI must always be right?
or
Does AI in a Turing Test pass when the independent observer cannot tell the difference between a randomised set of differing human responses the Bot?
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I want to know what the test is for artificial stupidity and how it can be distinguished from the natural kind.
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Conversely âHow do we know when AI is wrongâ?
When two AI directed vehicles collide, is it the vehicle that appeared first to err or the vehicle that failed to react as anticipated that is errant?
I know how machine to machine interactions are supposedly programmed to avoid this in the modern industrial world. *Every interaction is sequenced in real time and interlocked. Whether AI can deliver more reliable outcomes in every instance compared to hard coding (eg Railway Signalling) or human direction (eg Air Traffic Control) remains to be proven.
*An obvious simplification to those who know more than the average consumer.
Apologies as we are now on a different topic, although relevant to whether human jobs are likely to be replaced by AI.
