I thought it might be time to see where we actually are at this point in time as there have been many announcements in the past year talking up what will be done but we actually need a reality check.
In previous blogs I have discussed factory automation, shipping automation and computers in the home as well as robotics in general.
In transport the focus has been on automated cars and trucks but that's only the most visible part.
Dubai is well on the way to introducing a personal quad copter taxi service by July this year using the Chinese Ehang184.
Automated trains have actually been around for some time with more coming on.
Fully automated services passenger services with no staff on board already exist in:
Spain
Denmark
UK
France
US
Canada
Germany
Switzerland
Automated long distance ore trains are in use here in Australia as well as trucks and other processes in mining. Australia leads the world in mining automation.
Industrial automation is definitely here to stay, even in the most unlikely areas.
Now for something completely different!
Now that it's 2017, many new cars are appearing with low level autonomous features as standard.
Adaptive cruise control, collision avoidance braking and lane holding are rapidly becoming standard features on even cheaper cars.
2018 will see the more autonomous functions appearing in earnest.
Google's Waymo, self driving car project, has announced public testing for hundreds of families in Arizona USA. It's also extending its fleet of automated minivans from 100 to 600 which will make it the largest fleet of robotic cars in the world.
Meanwhile, Roborace is the world's first robotic racing car.
However the first race between two of them actually didn't go as well as expected with one crashing into the barrier.
After all, that's what testing is about, rather on a track than a city street.
Due to family issues and a general malaise on my part I haven't done a blog for some time so I will now make the effort.
Firstly I finally got to take a ride on the only automated bus being legally operated on public roads in the world.
Of course this is in my home city of Perth Western Australia, often said to be the remotest city in the world as it's on the west coast of Australia (With a name like that where else would it be?)
The next nearest major city would be Adelaide which is 2,700 kilometres by road (1300 plus miles) so that is a lot of empty space but more on that later in this entry.
Perth is a modern city with nearly 2 million people and lots and lots of white beaches and a climate that California only thinks it has and without the pollution.
So for us to be the first in the world with an automated bus is pretty cool.
It is attracting interest from around the world with many visitors suprised that it's happening here.
Even Kryten from Red Dwarf fame (otherwise known as Robert Lewelyn) has been on the Intellibus.
His video is far better than mine so I will point to that to save me the embarrassment.
While the Intellibus is on the road it is not running (yet) in full autonomous mode as there are staff on board armed with an Xbox controller that gives them control if needed.
The bus takes off, trundles along, turns corners and gives way to traffic before proceeding.
However it detects obstacles and stops if impeded as the object avoidance is not yet turned on and the Xbox controller comes into its own and allows them to navigate around the obstruction.
This was particularly obvious when a woman opened her car door directly in front of the bus and it braked hard to avoid removing her from the shallow end of the gene pool.
The bin men had been recently as well and the bins on the road also made us stop and take remedial action.
The first thing I noticed when we took off was that I had absolutely no fear of not having a human in total control.
The second thing I noticed was the push bikes overtaking us but after all, it is early days in the testing and you can't really expect the authorities to sign off on full road speeds straight out of the gate.
All in all I found it to be a great experience and very much look forward to this becoming the norm.
All Kudos to the RAC and the government for putting Perth in the forefront, albeit in a limited way, of this amazing new technology.
A couple of weeks ago I had to opportunity to visit a number of remote communities in the far east of Western Australia (WA), close to the Northern Territory (NT) and South Australian (SA) borders.
To give you some context, WA covers a million square miles. There are sheep stations in the far north bigger than many European countries (and US states).
You could plonk Texas in the far north and never miss the space WA would lose, it's that big.
Considering a single state that is 1/3 the size of the whole continental US and has less that 3 million people with 2 million living in Perth, then you can appreciate that there is an awful lot of empty.
The remote communities I visited, in the course of my work, are really remote, as can be seen from the above photo. The white dots is the community.
The local people here are nomadic tribes that wander through the three states, sometimes spending six months at one site before moving on. These are the Ngaanyatjarra people and one of only two tribes, I believe, who still have their native tongue as a first language.
These communities have local schools with a transitory population and very dedicated staff that do their absolute best for the kids and the community. As with most schools in Western Australia, I.T. is widely used for education and these remote communities are no exception. They have broadband of varying speeds and computers and tablets at the schools.
One of the principals related a story where all the kids disappeared one morning and the whole community went bush for a few hours.
When the boys returned they were in full body paint (ochre).
They all filed back into class like that and it was a testimony to the meeting of cultures when they were sitting there in full paint and googling through Ipads.
The point I am trying to make is that technology is now everywhere and there is no getting away from it.
Even in the middle of nowhere technology still exists and is widely accepted and used, so when people talk about bring back jobs by stopping automation, stopping globalisation and generally acting like a Luddite, think of a kid, sitting in the middle of nowhere looking at a whole shiny new world through a device held in his painted hand.
Technology is not something new, it's not a product of the modern age, it is something that has been part of human history since history began.
Automation is a logical progression, where technology makes life easier why not use it more efficiently to take the workload off people and make their time usage more efficient?
Man has always striven to develop new technologies and adapt it to our advantage.
We started with fire by adapted that from nature so we could cook, keep warm and have light to see by at night. From that point on, man started to make things that made life easier for them, like tools.
One of the major inventions that had a huge impact on the development of society was the wheel. This revolutionised the transport of goods and allowed more people to travel in groups and move bigger loads with far less effort.
The printing press made mass produced printing available for the first time and allowed society to make it's first steps away from the church as a source of all knowledge. The church pretty much had a monopoly on literature and guarded it jealously so they could control what was disseminated to the masses. Once anyone could print their own literature that became a threat to the church.
This bought up a continuing battle that still rages when new technologies threaten the established order. The church, through their government control attempted to shut it down by introducing a printers guild, where anyone who wanted to print had to obtain a copy right from the guild.
This is where the modern copyright comes from and I will touch on that again later.
With the advent of steam engines the world really took off and the industrial revolution changed manufacturing, agriculture and transport forver. This was a major turning point in automating labour intensive industries into machine driven industry.
People became feeders of the machines and factory output increased dramatically with a smaller labour force and as people had to work to survive, they had to work in appalling conditions for low pay as they could be easily replaced.
The telegraph, then the telephone followed closely by radio changed the way the world communicated and fast global communication was born.
Electricity and electronics increased the spread of technology and allowed it to move into wider business use and into the home. Everyone in the developed world could have a washing machine, electric cooker and radio.
For the first time you could have the news at home, soon after it happened as it was telegraphed around the world in a matter of hours.
With the advent of the first computers by the British to crack German codes in World War 2, the world stood on the brink of a huge business transformation.
When the personal computer came out in the eighties the world well and truly fell over the brink and the whole world changed again.
Accountants could do forward projections via spreadsheets in hours rather than days and they literally threw money at the computer companies. Again staff numbers dropped and productivity increased.
We all know how the office environment transformed with these new devices but then the Internet hit and stood the world on its head again.
That transformed the business model more than the advent of the computer had.
In the interim the Asian region moved massively into the 20th century and as their people became more affluent the consumer base grew and they moved into larger scale manufacturing.
With a cheap labour force they expanded their markets to the world and the west, faced with increasing labour costs moved many jobs to Asia.
Many western companies also saw this as a bad thing and decided to automate to cut costs and increase manufacturing capability as well as keeping the industry in their own countries.
You now have the situation, particularly in the US where manufacturing is the largest export sector and to keep competitive is increasing their automation and shedding even more jobs. '
Asia saw this happening and is now automating as well to increase productivity and cut jobs to compete with the rise of western technology.
As computers grow and computing power increases dramatically with every new generation the scope of automation increases exponentially. You now have computers in nearly everything from your fridge to the toaster to the phone in your pocket.
The greater the computing power, the more ways we have to use it.
Autonomous vehicles are now a reality and it's only a matter of when, not if, they become widely available.
This level of automation sees a new generation of jobs to be shed as there will be very few truck drivers, delivery people, taxi drivers and anyone else involved in supporting these in the not too distant future.
Quite a few factual type reporting articles (sports in particular) are being written by computer so there are journalism entry level jobs there disappearing as well.
Medical technology is now high tech with many machines that go ping!
Seriously though many more patients can be monitored from a central location without having to do frequent rounds to check, again reducing staffing levels. They can automatically release medication without intervention and adjust the levels based on electronic monitoring.
Autonomous vehicles will stand the world on its head yet again and the social implications are huge as I have discussed before.
Shipping in major ports is now virtually automated across the globe.
Even the flying car is back on the radar (pardon the pun).
Technology is happening at an ever increasing rate and as with any technology there are always people for whatever reason always want to oppose it.
This can be for many reasons including not wanting to redefine the business model which invariable introduces cost and loss of profit due to market erosion. The music publishing industry is a classic example of that.
Movie and television companies still cling to regional copyright in the face of world wide simple to use pirate techniques that bypass these controls.
Most people actually want to pay for their content but if they can't get it at a reasonable price they will find other ways of getting it.
Ask many Netflix subscribers who previous had access to Netflix content from around the globe. Now that they can't get it anymore, many have gone back to downloading the same content.
Companies are automating their factories to compete with cheap Asian goods, robots are moving into home and retail, and online shopping is becoming the norm.
Taxi drivers are protesting world wide over Uber and related services.
In the next year or so Uber and truck drivers will be protesting automated vehicles.
The expression used to be that the only certainty in life is death and taxes.
In the modern age that has become death, taxes and change.
Once it's out there the technology is not going away.
Unfortunately there is only one option, adapt or die!
I have always been a supporter of technology but we are now at such an advanced stage of development that the people aspect needs to become a major part of the discussion.
As people are displaced by technology their income, and by extension, their purchasing power reduces.
I have reduced this to a couple of very simplistic equations:
Higher automation = higher output and lower employment levels
Lower employment = smaller consumer base
Smaller consumer base = lower sales,
Reduce prices = increase sales
Reduce cost = higher automation
rinse and repeat
It's not really rocket science but with many governments having the emphasis on developing new jobs then it's not being considered as an issue.
Once you look at industry today and the levels of automation then you will see that these jobs are not coming back... Not ever.
So despite the public rhetoric surround trade deals employment and globalisation, we really need to start a new conversation.
Unfortunately I see some of the current world leaders following an alternative reality.
It seems every time there's a new news report (if you ignore Trump) it's about some new unrelated company moving into the autonomous vehicle (AV) market.
Google, Apple and now even Panasonic has a concept vehicle.
Automation in society today, as we all know, goes well beyond AV's.
Every part of our life is affected by automation and we all have pervasive technology in our homes.
We all have smartphones, smart TV's streaming video and music and who doesn't have the Internet.
Very few people today don't do at least some of their shopping online. Could you imagine going back to paying your bills in person or by cheque?
As time goes on this automation will increase dramatically and this uptake and acceptance into our lives is acceleration at an exponential rate.
This may be what it looks like not too far into the future.
Whether you like it or not it is coming.
Robotics is advancing at a huge rate and rapidly becoming normal within our homes.
AI research is advancing so fast it is now into toys.
It's already in business. This is an automated hotel in Japan.
It's not going away any time soon so good luck to bringing back jobs D.T.
Thomas Paine once said - "The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection". In an age where automation is quickly becoming the norm we have to learn from the changes in our society and adapt accordingly. In a new world where we want everything and we want it now we no longer have the luxury of waiting. When something new that everyone wants becomes available we don't want to wait for it, we just want it. To give you an example of how time frames are becoming compressed have a look at the social phenomenon of Susan Boyle. In 2009 she appeared on the popular television show Britain's Got Talent (BGT) and instantly became a world wide household name. At that time the Internet had just becoming the huge behemoth it is now and the BGT video became one of the most viewed videos throughout the world. Her popularity was immense and I happened to be fortunate enough to be in the UK when the finals were held and saw the incredible publicity and euphoria that it created as it happened. On the downside, at that point the music industry was still in denial of the Internet and was clinging ferociously to its old distribution model. With the Internet giving free publicity world wide to Susan Boyle, it took a full seven months for her music to be released for sale, and then it was only a CD with many tracks no one wanted. It did sell in the millions but imagine the sales today if it was released within a day of the free publicity via the Internet?
Prophetic interview with David Bowie who saw many things coming from the Internet that most people missed, way back in 1999.
The desire for things to happen fast and the need to get to market quickly has created a manufacturing conundrum. There are a couple of options on how to achieve a quick move to market: Outsource it to Asia where they have a huge and agile manufacturing industry, or do it domestically by automating the workforce. Given that Asia is now also automating their workforce it doesn't leave a lot of options. With automated vehicles doing away with multitudes of jobs ranging from Taxi and truck drivers to panel beaters and road workers this also adds to the problem. Now, given the computers are used to design the new products and automation (domestic or foreign) is increasing used for the manufacturing it creates a major problem for the world.
The business owners can see huge long term savings from automation by downsizing staff and new products can be turned out much faster at lower cost. The logical progression here is that all industries will be forced to head down that path eventually or die for the simple reason, as I've said before (ad-nauseum) that once the technology is out there it won't go away. You can only ignore or oppose technological change for a certain amount of time before you just start to look silly. As automation increases what will happen to the market? A mass production manufacturing industry needs mass consumers. If the consumers are increasingly out of work, where is the market? Now I am the first to admit that I am not an economist, manufacturer or social engineer, but even I can see this as a problem. So how do you turn your unemployed into consumers? This is going to be a major issue as time goes on. You could take the head in the sand attitude and follow Trumps view. This would bring manufacturing back to your own country by government protectionism and create jobs but at most, this will be unsustainable and expensive - unless you automate, which then doesn't bring jobs.
So, given that the rest of the world will continue to embrace globalism and automation at an ever increasing pace, then as a global society (sans U.S.) we need to look at the people who don't have technical skills or the ability to improve themselves by themselves. One such solution that's been kicked around for quite some time now is the Guaranteed Basic Income. This is a situation where the government pays you a basic wage, whether you work or not.
In one stroke you do away with unemployment benefits (food stamps in countries that have them) and other social systems. There is no need for any control as everyone is entitled to the income.
Industry pays for it through taxation. Communism? Not really. It's actually a logical extension of Capitalism.
Automation is a situation that industry is creating that carries the seed of it's own destruction by creating massive unemployment and therefore removing it's own market. How do you keep consumers? The Guaranteed Basic Income is not a new idea. Nixon (of all people) actually floated this and had a test run that showed it to be viable. It did not discourage people from working, did not :"break the bank" and was a failure only for political reasons. This article documents the trial and shows the huge results achieved from the testing of the theory but was shot down by harking back to an old English suggestion 150 years before of doing something similar. This English example was heavily based on the assumption of the "lazy poor" where it was assumed if you got paid you wouldn't want to work. Nixon's test basically disproved that but he chose to put politics before people as so often happens and it morphed into something else. Now this is all very radical in today's society but given that automation will cost jobs there has to be some way of ensuring that we have consumers to buy the products that automation can provide. That may be enough to have this looked at in a more serious light now that something actually will be needed as high volume permanent unemployment is no longer just theory. This concept is, logically enough, gaining traction in the Nordic countries. Maybe we are approaching the age of reason at last. Or maybe not, lets just wait for the official tweet. P.S. It is now official as of 20/1/2017, the whole world has the DT's
Hi all,
I did promise that I was going to have my first ride on the Navya/RAC Intellibus and do a story on it but alas, it was not to be.
There are some issues with the bus. These appear to be mechanical, not related to the actual tech of the machine but probably more to the harsh conditions to be found here.
In recent days we have had a number of hot days (37 C or higher (100 F + in old tech)) which have had an effect on the air conditioning and the doors of the bus designed in the much cooler European climate. I believe our lack of infrastructure with Mobile (cell) signal inadequacy has an impact as well.
My understanding is that support is on the way and local training will also occur to enable these issues to be resolved locally in the future.
As with any new technology there are always teething troubles and we learn from them and passenger safety is the primary concern, hence the delays.
Hopefully I will get to to see it soon.
The Detroit Motor show 2017 is underway and all the new shiny metal is on display.
Of course tech is highlighted any time you are talking cars these days.
Most of these, and we are talking cars you and I can afford, not top of the line machines, have incorporated a lot of driver assist features including adaptive cruise control, lane departure assist, pedestrian detection and pre-collision detection. That last one boggles the imagination, does it take action or just give time for you to say "oh S..."?
Being a Toyota enthusiast, I know not the most glamorous machines, I find the new Camry looks great.
In Australia the six cylinder version comes out as a separate model called the Aurion (which I drive) and love and it will be interesting to see what the new Aurion looks like when it arrives here.
So the new features will soon be standard on all models and people will start to see the benefits of the car assuming some control and warning capability, which will go a long way in driving acceptance of the tech.
It seems the higher end machines are not at the Detroit show and we will have to wait for the New York and other shows before we see the latest tech.
Concept cars appeared, as they do at these shows and except for the first one are generally electric and autonomous.
Not a lot happening at the moment so ... stay tuned.
