Construction Firm Balfour Beatty Considers Drone Workers 129
cagraham writes "International engineering and construction firm Balfour Beatty is considering using drones in order to construct walls and monitor work sites, among other things. Beatty CIO Danny Reeves, speaking at the Fujitsu Forum, said drones could improve efficiency and safety on sites. He also talked of implementing sensors that would monitor worker's stress levels and bodily functions, and notify management when they became less effective, or mistake-prone, on the job."
reminds me of the story "manna" (Score:4, Informative)
the latter part sounds like the beginning on "manna" - computer system in a short story somebody linked to in ./ recently.
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm [marshallbrain.com]
creepy.
Re:reminds me of the story "manna" (Score:4, Informative)
I hate that story... no matter how many free energy robots you have, they can't build you a home on Lake Washington if all the lots are already taken. Nor can they arrange 50,000 people to *all* have the front row at a popular concert.
The economics of it make no sense.
Re:And do what with the unemployed? (Score:4, Informative)
Look, higher efficiencies have tended to lead to less hours dedicated to survival. While some research has indicated that a hunter gatherers actually worked less those based of fixed agriculture, for recorded history is does seem that the average number of hours required to subsist has decrease. For much of history those that worked worked all the time. When formal government and royalty emerged, peasants certainly never got a day off. Judism may be several centuries old, but we don't know when anyone started getting a day of rest. Certainly Christianity has only been giving some workers a day of rest for a couple thousand years. I suppose the American slaves worked seven days a week, at least a partial day.
So through the 19th century we has a 60-100 hour work week, with one day off. Kids worked. In fact kids working were such a ingrained part of the time that in some places when a kid was accidental killed there was a statutory payment made by the culprit representing the value the he had to the family.
So that is another thing. Fewer people working. When we gained sufficient efficiencies, and enough wealth, we implement child worker laws. So four year old kids were no longer employed in factories during the industrial revolution. In 1904 children were regularly employed int he textile industry in the US. Want to know what killed manufacturing in the US? Cheap child labor. Wan to to know why we have child labor laws in the US. Because increases in efficiencies and a bad economy meant there were not enough jobs to go around for everyone. Except for agriculture which no one wanted to do. Which children continued to do until the later quarter of the 20th century. At which point immigrants became the primary agricultural worker.
In the mid 19th century though, professionals enjoyed a 10 hour work day. and federal workers had an 8 hour work day. By the turn of the 20th century we had an 8-10 hour work day for most people, and many firms increased wages to account for the decreased time. It proved beneficial for profits, so the movement grew. Around the time that we stopped employing children in factories, the US also required employers to generally only ask for 40 hours of work, pay overtime, and pay a minimum wage. Again, because efficiencies to productivity were not being pass on the workers, unemployment was high, and clearly that many firms did this voluntarily indicated it was not bad for bidness.
We do have a similar situation now. Gains in efficiencies are not being passed on to workers. In a generation or two many studies have suggested that most manual labor, even professional trades like lawyers, who have already taken a significant hit, will be greatly diminished as viable work. Engineering is expected to take a hit soon after that. The reduction from 16 to 8 was quick as the industrial revolution progressed. I have seen offices go to a four day week, and time will show that nomore work gets done in 10 hours than 8. It will be 32 hour week, then 28 hour week.