IslandMan zardoz Euclid It is hard to get an answer when you ask why Rio Tinto is going to driverless trains. Saving the cost of labor seems like the obvious answer, but what does that savings look like compared to the cost of automating? Just like in grocery stores and Wal-marts...how much does each self-checkout kiosk cost, and how long does it take to recoup those costs when it is replacing a near-minimum-wage employee? Sometimes it seems to me that CEO's and their ilk would prefer to not have any employees - just robots. I wonder how they'll feel when AI becomes so smart that it can make decisions better than any CEO. When automation takes over, and AI designs and builds even better AI, what are we humans going to do with ourselves? ..and what happens as human labour is displaced and with it the spending power that wage earners have and use to buy more goods and services? Lots of stuff on the market but no-one to buy it!
zardoz Euclid It is hard to get an answer when you ask why Rio Tinto is going to driverless trains. Saving the cost of labor seems like the obvious answer, but what does that savings look like compared to the cost of automating? Just like in grocery stores and Wal-marts...how much does each self-checkout kiosk cost, and how long does it take to recoup those costs when it is replacing a near-minimum-wage employee? Sometimes it seems to me that CEO's and their ilk would prefer to not have any employees - just robots. I wonder how they'll feel when AI becomes so smart that it can make decisions better than any CEO. When automation takes over, and AI designs and builds even better AI, what are we humans going to do with ourselves?
Euclid It is hard to get an answer when you ask why Rio Tinto is going to driverless trains. Saving the cost of labor seems like the obvious answer, but what does that savings look like compared to the cost of automating?
It is hard to get an answer when you ask why Rio Tinto is going to driverless trains. Saving the cost of labor seems like the obvious answer, but what does that savings look like compared to the cost of automating?
Just like in grocery stores and Wal-marts...how much does each self-checkout kiosk cost, and how long does it take to recoup those costs when it is replacing a near-minimum-wage employee?
Sometimes it seems to me that CEO's and their ilk would prefer to not have any employees - just robots. I wonder how they'll feel when AI becomes so smart that it can make decisions better than any CEO.
When automation takes over, and AI designs and builds even better AI, what are we humans going to do with ourselves?
..and what happens as human labour is displaced and with it the spending power that wage earners have and use to buy more goods and services? Lots of stuff on the market but no-one to buy it!
The CEO's ideal for his entire enterprise is to come in in the morning - push a button and watch product and/or services happen without requiring payroll and then look at accounts recievable as the money rolls in without stopping. At this point in time, CEO's don't care that what they pay their employees forms the basis to keep the perpetual money machine running. When no one can afford their product and/or services they will wonder what happened.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
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I much prefer the self checkouts.. its easy to scan one's items, and machines are never rude. Your question about what happens to displaced human labor.. they will likely become cannon fodder for the next great war, which, by the way, appears imminent.
Euclid BaltACD I wonder who will fix the burst air hose in remote areas? Probably a remote control drone run by someone in an office 100 miles away. I wonder what EHH thinks of driverless trains.
BaltACD I wonder who will fix the burst air hose in remote areas?
I wonder who will fix the burst air hose in remote areas?
Probably a remote control drone run by someone in an office 100 miles away.
I wonder what EHH thinks of driverless trains.
Dream on.
Norm
As I recall, when they first announced this a few years ago, they said it was getting harder to find people willing to work in remote areas. I've always thought that to mean they couldn't find people willing to work in remote areas without paying premium wages.
Looking at their website, it looks like they want to automate has much of the mining and handling process as possible.
Jeff
It is hard to get an answer when you ask why Rio Tinto is going to driverless trains. Saving the cost of labor seems like the obvious answer, but what does that savings look like compared to the cost of automating? I would think the type of heavy trains they haul would already by relatively cost effective even with crew costs. I get the impression that companies are a little nervous about admitting they are automating to save the cost of employees in such safety-sensitive jobs. The more preferred explanation seems to be that they are automating to make the world safer. Although that means that they believe their crews are not 100% safe in their operation.
Here is a link to the Rio Tinto automation that says the following:
“The company said that 90% of its pooled fleet production tonnes are AutoHaul enhanced, which means they are able to operate continuously without shift changes and improved safety, with trains responding automatically to speed limits and alarms.
Rio Tinto said it has already seen the benefits from AutoHaul in increased train speeds and fewer stops that have cut more than an hour from average journey times.”
http://www.mining.com/rio-tinto-back-on-track-to-haul-iron-ore-in-driverless-trains-beginning-next-year/
Why does automation result in fewer stops? I guess it’s because nobody has to use the bathroom.
Widespread application likely only a few years off. In the meantime employers and invasive technologies like inward facing cameras will simply hasten the inevitable...i.e. phasing out jobs that nobody will want anymore anyway.
Perhaps needless to add, we've had full-scale 'driverless' unit trains on dedicated ROWs for many years, albeit with a lower level of technical sophistication.
While much of the technology now evolving for autonomous vehicles is highly useful for 'autonomous trains', the programming and technical issues, and the various 'political' and legal issues that surround application of the technology for more than something like the expanded version of TO, are distinct from those for automobiles and trucks. It would take a repeat of icicles freezing in railroad Hades (it has happened, the first time being when Erie paid an actual dividend in the '40s) for full 'driverless trains' to come into being anywhere on the general system of transportation...
That's not to say there are better ways to use the technologies to enhance single-man crew operation. But that's a completely different discussion with a different set of values involved.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/news/amp28470/new-driverless-train-could-reinvent-shipping/
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