But today I was suprised at the level of automation that already exists in our society.
Honestly, I really need to get out more.
Today I took my daughter and her family to the airport and then I really started to think about how far down the track automation has already taken us and how we accept it without a second thought.
Automated traffic lights linked by computer to maximise traffic flow all the way. When we arrived at the airport there are automated signs with flashing messages and electronic advertising panels trying (unsuccessfully I might add) to sell me stuff.
We drive in to the fully automated car park where we take a ticket and the gate opens, we drive in and park and after getting the cases and all the other stuff needed to support a four year old on a trip, we entered the terminal.
Do we wait in a long line for a bored person behind the desk to print out boarding passes and give seat allocations?
Not these techno bunnies.
They've already done most of that online and have seat allocations, boarding pass and all other info on their smartphones.
At the airport the cases get weighed on an automated scale, the phone boarding pass is scanned and the baggage labels shoot out of the machine. You attach those to the bag and trundle across the floor to the baggage check in machine.
This machine scans the phone again, you place the bag on the rack and lasers scan the area and read the tags. The machine says thank you and the bag automatically disappears into the bowels of the earth, hopefully to reappear again in one piece at the final destination.
Now that process is out of the way without any airport staff intervention everyone sits down and uses their phones for what they're designed for, letting all their friends know they're at the airport through their favourite social media platform.
At that moment my wife gets a selfie from the four year old who has just discovered how snap chat works.
We are sitting there gazing out the window at the plane when a food handling platform rolls up. It has a shrink wrapped container of food trays about a metre square. It slides from the truck to the conveyor by rollers, no human interaction. The conveyor then rises on a scissor lift to the galley level of the aircraft. The roller start to move it toward the aircraft and the rollers change direction and the container rotates to face the aircraft and then moves in automatically, no people to be seen. The truck backs away and the door closes.
The boarding announcement comes and everyone gets to stand in line, where they stay for the next 15 minutes as the staff try furiously to get the boarding pass scanning system to work. After numerous reboots the computer God gives a final sad laugh and deigns to let people aboard the highly computerised and automated aircraft.
We say our goodbyes and walk back to the car to pay the parking robot $13 for the pleasure of leaving our car in the open wet car park for less than two hours.
I then have to manually drive my non automated car home.
Irony anyone?
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