Mining Companies Are Using Autonomous Trucks, Drills and Trains To Boost Efficiency, Reduce Employees (technologyreview.com) 94
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.
And it has come to this: (Score:4, Funny)
Rio Tinto uses driverless trucks provided by Japan's Komatsu.
Damn foreign trucks stealing our jobs. :-)
Re:And it has come to this: (Score:5, Informative)
We have domestic companies doing the same thing: http://www.cat.com/en_US/artic... [cat.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
For farms Case is doing autonomous tractors:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
The technology is there and easy enough that someone built his own version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Damn, there goes all those coal industry jobs we were going to have.
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RLY? I thought it was owned, or at least founded by the Rothschilds. So calling it Australian would be a bit of a stretch.
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Damn foreign trucks stealing our jobs. :-)
We can defeat the foreign truck invasion, in the same way that we warded off the Dalek invasion:
Stairs!
No need for complete walls across our borders . . . just a few stairways at strategic locations will stop those wily foreign autonomous trucks.
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These monster machines can thwart your stairs defense the same way Daleks do.
They don't climb the stairs.
They just level the building.
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These monster machines can thwart your stairs defense the same way Daleks do.
They don't climb the stairs.
They just level the building.
Marvin, the Paranoid Android, will talk them into oblivion.
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Daleks levitate/fly
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Re:Lololol leftists (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup, it's all fun and games until your social model collapses and the unfed hopeless masses gather and hang you in your mansion.
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They probably will use a guillotine instead.
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Let them eat Cake!
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UBI won't cover those that have a moderate, comfortable lifestyle.
It might not keep them in the style to which they are accustomed, but it will meet their needs. Not everyone is entitled to more rooms and cars than they need, and to live in San Francisco.
Re:Lololol leftists (Score:5, Interesting)
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"
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I'm with drinkypoo, I'd much rather enjoy the fruits of not working and find fulfillment in learning for the sake of it and taking up farming to grow some healthy food and for barter, etc. I would happily stay home and enjoy life rather than slaving for fake money to enrich some already over-rich executives.
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Americans, on average, only spend about 10% of their income on food. I'm impressed that you have become self-sufficient food-wise, but for most people this is a small fraction of their expense. Housing (25%) and healthcare (~20%, depending on how you count) are a larger concern. Your family can eat like an affluent person for $180/week, which is around $10k/year - according to a recent Gallup poll of US families.
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Yep, all we need are printing presses or computer number generators, we'll all be rich with all that extra money to spend.
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Its not exactly as if progress is new - 150 years ago, a farms harvest used to take hundreds of workers days to accomplish, and those workers went from farm to farm doing harvests in a few short weeks. Millions of workers working across a country. Now, a couple dozen people using machinery do the same work - the social model has already collapsed, many times over, and we have never had a revolt before.
The introduction of weaving machines, spinning jennies etc took the jobs of millions of home workers and
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Because they are coming after your job and not someone else's?
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[...]the social model has already collapsed, many times over, and we have never had a revolt before.
It came close a few times in England, for example with the Luddites [wikipedia.org] in the 1810s, which also had the Pentrich rising [wikipedia.org], Ely riots [wikipedia.org], Spa Fields riots [wikipedia.org], and the Peterloo massacre [wikipedia.org]. The English parliament of the time certainly feared a revolution, and passed the Six Acts [wikipedia.org] in response. Ten years later saw the Swing Riots [wikipedia.org], also protesting unemployment following agricultural mechanisation.
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You know what I just noticed? We don't need you. You are, essentially, superfluous. We only need your money. I think we'll learn a bit from the capitalists and cut the fat. The fat cat, that is.
yup (Score:4, Funny)
not using mules and canaries either
I've been saying for a long time about autonomus t (Score:4, Insightful)
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No offence intended but there are always tricky edge cases. Reality is more complicated than we realize.
And yet, there are still dramatically fewer of them if you put the vehicles on rails. Ideally you'd have the vehicles locked to the track in the same way as a roller coaster, to keep them from falling off even in extreme circumstances.
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putting it underground will free up enough expensive property to pay for the entire system.
Hmm, citation needed. One of the advantages of an elevated system is that you don't have to bury it, and it also doesn't use up much real estate. I question whether you could cost-effectively bury transportation systems under existing cities today, as compared to having to deal with the weather instead which has been relatively well solved by the auto industry already.
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About 40-60% of the Dallas Texas DART light rail system is above grade, except for where it's already on existing railroad grades, or the brief ~1 mile subway section under the dense suburban area just north of downtown. It works really well, there's almost 0 at grade crossings in the most densely populated areas.
Re:I've been saying for a long time about autonomu (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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So this could be part of the Trump Infrastructure Program? It will put people to work building it until it is built and they have nothing else to do.
A little later than expected. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:A little later than expected. (Score:4, Informative)
Automated excavation already exists. Google Automated machine grading. You input a design terrain model into the equipment and put someone in the seat to drive it and the equipment does all the excavating and tells the driver where to go. This has existed for about a decade. The next step is get rid of the no skill driver in the seat and add the radar and cameras so it doesn't run anyone over. Given the advancement in driver-less vehicles it's not going to be long before the only people on construction sites are the foreman and engineer.
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only people on construction sites are the foreman and engineer.
Too dirty. I'm going to work via telepresence.
Good (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
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This would require Congress fund re-training and education. Given their abhorrence of Science and spending money on education, those people are screwed, but thanks for playing.
Tires last longer. (Score:5, Interesting)
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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.
About $50,000 a piece, and each truck needs six. And that's just purchase cost.They're expensive to transport and probably not easy to fit. Plus the cost of having a vehicle out of commission. For a full tire change you'd spend half a million dollars.
I wonder why they didn't start with the automated trains. Technologically, it must be a hundred times simpler.
the world used to need ditch diggers! (Score:3)
the world used to need ditch diggers! Now I need to punch the CEO in the face so I can go to lock up to get health coverage. As no plan will take me as that think I have miners lung or something and with no job I can''t pay 10K mo for a plan with pre existing conditions covered.
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Now I need to punch the CEO in the face so I can go to lock up to get health coverage.
That's a bad plan. Prisons are in the news all the time for prisoners receiving inadequate health care.
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still better then the ER that does not cover all stuff.
Job creators no more. (Score:1)
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.
I'm hoping that their new largest operational cost is prevention and mitigation of the pollution and environmental damage they create. Now that these companies can no longer claim to be the source of as many jobs, they should have a harder time externalizing these costs.
Okay, fat chance.
As hard as it is to lose your job... (Score:2)
As hard as it is to lose your job, we've come a long way from the days when "consumption" would be diagnosed in 20-year olds who died a couple years later. Even in the USA where we tend to take worker safety more seriously, it's still a chance of death every time a worker goes underground.
The problem of what to do with displaced workers is not new. It's time we found a real solution. One that doesn't involve violent revolution/communism. Been there, done that. One that doesn't involve bogus "re-trainin
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"We're going to have to care for people without coddling them"
I expect a lot more people are going to end up in the military & Alaska
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UBI allowing people to play video games 24/7
As a videogame developer, the future is looking bright.
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Perhaps so, but "real AI" is still complete science fiction, and likely will be for the duration of my lifetime.
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Except on UBI, gamers will only be able to afford free to play games and won't be able to afford to buy any microtransactions.
So much for all those coal jobs (Score:3)
Sounds like a good place to test the technology (Score:2)
Good side is fewer miners get trapped in cave-ins. Bad side is those miners are now on unemployment.
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Reducing employees? (Score:2)
I know mining is a tough life but reducing your employees sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
At least they aren't being oxidised.
Its called automation. (Score:1)