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Mining Companies Are Using Autonomous Trucks, Drills and Trains To Boost Efficiency, Reduce Employees (technologyreview.com)
schwit1 quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Mining companies are rolling out autonomous trucks, drills, and trains, which will boost efficiency but also reduce the need for human employees. Rio Tinto uses driverless trucks provided by Japan's Komatsu. They find their way around using precision GPS and look out for obstacles using radar and laser sensors. The company's driverless trucks have proven to be roughly 15 percent cheaper to run than vehicles with humans behind the wheel -- a significant saving since haulage is by far a mine's largest operational cost. Trucks that drive themselves can spend more time working because software doesn't need to stop for shift changes or bathroom breaks. They are also more predictable in how they do things like pull up for loading. "All those places where you could lose a few seconds or minutes by not being consistent add up," says Rob Atkinson, who leads productivity efforts at Rio Tinto. They also improve safety. The driverless locomotives, due to be tested extensively next year and fully deployed by 2018, are expected to bring similar benefits. They also anticipate savings on train maintenance, because software can be more predictable and gentle than any human in how it uses brakes and other controls. Diggers and bulldozers could be next to be automated.
Farm equipment has been automated for quite sometime. Even Artic fishing has a heavy amount of automation. I am surprised that this sector has taken this long to automate things like trains and haulers...
Now digger automation I would like to see; where you trace out a 3D volume and let it go. It doesn't seem as simple as at first glance. Soil densities vary and you run into obstacles that need a little planning and strategy. Doing it wrong can break some expensive parts or at least wear them out faster. Neat times ahead, hope someone posts some YouTube vids.
Very good news.
Too much death and long-term negative effects on the health of people involved in the mining industry, regardless of technological advancement.
In addition to that, regardless of various safety regulations and laws and struggles to enforce safety in the mining industry, most of it sooner or later went down the drain or had trivial influence.
Better take people out of the equation as much as possible in this sector and have them learn and do better stuff to do safer jobs.
A big motivating reason for using the automated trucks is reduced wear on the tires. Each tire costs a small fortune. Extending their life by 5 to 10% is a big deal.
It's not about being entitled, it's about earning a living through hard work, and enjoying the fruits of that labor.
No, it absolutely is about being entitled. You seem to think that people are entitled to make-work to make them feel useful, even if it is "killing the planet" (i.e. damaging the biosphere beyond its ability to support our societies.) This is a load of dingo's kidneys. We must see our way past people being fulfilled by their jobs in some sort of ghastly caricature of an artificial protestant work ethic.
You are not righteously, inherently entitled to have things if other people have to suffer for them, or at least not any more entitled than they are to punch you in the face for it. Our social models have to evolve past their idea that you should be able to have whatever you want, whenever you want it like some big spoiled baby who is never told "no".
TL;DR: "no"
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No offence intended but there are always tricky edge cases. Reality is more complicated than we realize.
The worst edge cases by far are drunk, senile, texting and/or plain old incompetent drivers. Yet we're developing autonomous vehicles that can mix in with those and perform acceptably.
By comparison, it would be a piece of cake to develop a dedicated transport system, allowing only automated traffic, with a safety level that's an order of magnitude better than current public highways.