Robotic Mining Arrives

Leif Bloomquist writes: "I've been involved in something called the Mining Automation Program, a 5 year R&D effort to create tele-operated and autonomous mining machines. The program just wrapped up, and the world's first totally robotic mine is now in operation in Sudbury, Canada. It's very cool stuff, and yes, in a way, it's a precursor to the robots in "Descent". :) We had to bring together space+robotics technology, wireless LANs, and even virtual reality and video game interfaces. The whole point is to enhance safety by having no humans underground, and to boost productivity by saving the time to travel underground and have one driver controlling a whole fleet."

Comments

But..

[drift factor]

Did they also make a robotic canary to let the other robots know when to get the hell out?

Mark Tilden's Robots

[gimple]

I have this dream (dream 'cause I know I'll never get around to it) of having about a thousand little bug like robots that get their energy from grass. They would spend the day under the porch and come out at night to take little snips off the lawn. The lawn would maintain a constant 3" length. BTW, they would come out at night so they don't scare the snot out of the neighbors.

How Dare They!

[Seinfeld]

What? You mean someone has the gall to want to keep people from performing one of the most hazardous, unpleasant, life-shortening jobs ever dreamed up? Doesn't everyone have the right to not have some machine take their backbreaking, coal-dust-breathing job? I bet next those monsters will try to take away elephant-dung shoveling! I mean, didn't we learn anything from the tragedy of the Pony Express?
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Re:Bad thing -- Mining Accidents

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that to the thousands of miners killed or maimed every year because their cheap arsed bosses can't be bothered spending money on safety.

Noone can sensibly oppose the introduction of technologies that remove from human beings the requirement to perform dangerous labour.

Certainly, you'd hope that laid off miners would get retraining etc. and in western countries that *might* happen depending on what unions managed to get out of the bosses.

Either way though, it's doubtful that there would be widespread use anytime soon. Even the car industry, one of the most automated manufacturing processes there are, make extensive use of human labour. It's just hidden away in the subcontracting firms that produce the components that make up a car. It's only really final manufacture that uses robots.

There has been massive automation of all sorts of processes over the last 50 years and yet millions more people are gainfully employed than were back then. By your logic we'd all still be producing wool in our back yards.

Now, miniaturize them

[DeadVulcan]

A week or so ago, I saw a program on TV about diamond mining, and how the use of very large machinery has eliminated the possibility of finding very large diamonds any more, because the rock is crushed before being brought to the surface.

But, if the mining robots were smaller in scale and used smaller digging instruments, larger diamonds (like on the order of tennis ball size), rare as they may be, could have a chance of being recovered whole.

It's also probable that smaller robots would be able to recover materials much more efficiently and in a much more environmentally friendly way.

I doubt the economies of scale of current technology will support thousands of tiny robots, or if such robots would be capable of digging through solid rock.

But it's cool to speculate.

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Re:read first, think second, react last

[Dyolf Knip]

For everyone of us who can afford to survive in the 'new economy', there are dozens and dozens just barely scraping by.

I suppose you'd rather go back to everyone being sustenance farmers living one bad harvest away from starvation? There's a very good reason why a mere 3% of the US population can easily produce enough food for the rest of us. I'll give you a hint; it's that T-word that you seem to abhor so much.

I'm sick of technology. I wish it would go away, sometimes.

You want technology to go away? Fine. Go live in a cave in the middle of fscking nowhere so you needn't be bothered by such evils like running water. Demand that everyone with you have an average lifespan of 30 to 40 years, since modern medicine is anathema. Any children born to your family can have a survival rate on par with the toss of a coin. Have fun eeking out a living, hunter-gatherer style.

But do not even think to tell me that I have to join you.

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That Demon, Technology

[Dannon]

I'm sick of technology. I wish it would go away, sometimes. I really do.

I've been reading a very good book recently, The Existential Pleasures of Engineering, by Samuel Florman... and he addresses the growing trend of antitechnology, and refutes many claims associated with this trend. I'd have to quote three full chapters just to sum up his arguements, but I wouldn't hesitate to put it on my list of 'recommended reading'.

The thing is, technology is not likely to 'go away'. To begin with, it's a gross personification to treat technology as a thing with a will of its own. It can seem that way, to be sure... but every unforseen result of technology can be traced to a human-made decision, or series of decisions.

I belive it is an aspect of human nature to experiment, to explore, and to create. In a way, Philosophy, Art, Science, and Engineering are all efforts to fulfill a fundamental human impulse. I am attending school to become an Engineer... but at the same time, I consider myself a part-time Philosopher, Artist, and Scientist.

The 'solution' proposed by most antitechnologists does involve deliberately changing human nature. But such proposals are dangerous. How do we know that we are not 'dehumanizing' ourselves even further?

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