Followed by:
>But the reason why the technology is picking up in the mines is partly out of necessity. Partly because Rio Tinto can afford it.
Let's face it. Anything to not pay pensions and workman's comp.
The mining industry in Australia is on the tail end of the biggest expansion in living memory, and it turns out it is near-impossible for love or money to move Australians out into the desert to work in mines.
It was not unreasonable to have trucks parked up because there simply was no human to drive them, and the salaries for a truck driver were in the $150,000+ Australian dollars, plus food, lodging and plane flights. This doesn't represent a scary cost for a mining company - it represents a scary lack of worker supply. A parked truck is an unhappy truck.
In addition, we have very strict OH&S laws and the site mangers can be raked over the coals for the wierdest things. Eg, if I saw a light vehicle parked on non-level ground without wheel chocks, it would probably be escalated to the site Manager (not a pit supevisor, not the Manager of Mining, but the person responsible for the entire site) and someone being sacked would be an option on the table. Getting rid of the humans is a huge benefit from a safety perspective, which we take very, very seriously.
Finally, automated trucks will provably do the right thing, all the time, without getting fatigued or taking breaks. Humans just cannot compete from a utilising-the-very-expensive-asset-properly point of view.
[[Citation Needed]]
Contrast this with a human operator, who are instructed to drive at specific speeds at each road section. Perhaps due to fatigue , overconfidence (e.g. I drove on this road 1000's times before, I know what I am doing), or other factors, the driver did not slow down enough and subsequently accidents occur.
Yup. All innovation is really just a way to screw over the honest, hard working individual. From the mechanical loom to the automobile to electronically switched telephone networks, all innovation in the modern era has been to screw over the worker.
You and me, let's start a society that gets rid of all those horrible, unemployment-inducing contraptions. Imagine - we will have 0% unemployment because all of the machines will be humans!
Eventually you get two groups -
A few highly skilled and specialized people that design, maintain, and improve the automated systems.
A large amount of unskilled workers, who are nothing more than "replaceable units", that get told what to do by those systems.
And that does not even attempt to even show the amount of unemployable people that would be around from all the human jobs lost in the first place after the hump. Just think of the fast food industry, and how technologic improvements would "disrupt" it (by removing the work force). And then who do you sell the product to? The person who does not have a paycheck?
It is absolutely true that not needing to pay pensions or workman's comp is a part of the move to technology. But total jobs available goes up with increasing technological use while creating localized labor displacements.
as far as i know, unemployment has been fairly steady since the beginning of time. as new technologies come about, new jobs are created to replace the ones taken by machines. we're losing truck drivers at an alarming rate, but never before has there been so many designers and environmental consultants and political analyst jobs. it sucks if you're a truck driver, but doesn't really change much for global economics.
"A large amount of unskilled workers, who are nothing more than 'replaceable units', that get told what to do by those systems."
That is a pretty effective description of any post-industrial-revolution economy.
Companies do not pay pensions. That is left to a mix of a government-paid pension and individual retirement savings accounts (superannuation). Saving for retirement in Australia is compulsory.
As for workman's compensation, Rio have the best safety record of the majors. They have a fairly unyielding OH&S culture. My old man needed dozens of tickets to do his work. He'd need to justify climbing a ladder and log it.
Meanwhile, over in BHP, somebody seems to die every few months.
And climbing a ladder can be more dangerous than you'd think. Imagine it's a 10-meter ladder on top of some tall-ish structure. Falling down could easily cripple or kill you. The only reason this seems like a stupid safety measure is because people do it in civilian life all the time, without thinking about the (small but serious) risk. Such risks are things you see all the time when operating at scale.
Eliminating workman's comp suggests that the robotic vehicles are substantially safer compared to putting human lives at risk.
(As a roboticist, I reject the notion that "all automation is bad", but that's a separate discussion.)
These are very hazardous work sites and these vehicles are bit unforgiving. The day we don't send people down in mines will be a good one, if it starts with the trucks up top then so be it.
The problem is what to do with the displaced labor.