Difference between revisions of "Main Page/Advanced automation"

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Revision as of 00:03, 24 December 2006

Advanced automation here refers to sophisticated automated systems, ideally with the additional capability for self-maintenance and repair, mostly requiring little or no human interaction to operate, apart from top-level guidance. Not being reliant on human effort to scale, these systems would hugely magnify our capability for production and decouple human time and effort from industrial productivity, allowing us to create as much of anything that is needed, while releasing people from mindless labour. This situation will arise when automated harvesting of raw materials is combined with automated logistics (already commonplace), automated transport systems, robotic manufacturing and self-maintenance and repair, creating fully automated production of useful goods.

In Western countries many industrial process are becoming highly automated already, but human effort is needed for construction and commissioning as well as maintenance and repair. In developing nations, there is not much automation at all due to labour being so cheap; however this is a great waste of human lives.

These self-repairing systems are based on technologies and knowledge that we already possess. No fictional concepts or unattainable artificial intelligence are required to make this happen. We have the ability today to create systems that provide for the global population's basic needs and far beyond, while minimising our impact on the environment – these two aspects are not mutually exclusive.

Automated infrastructure refers to the key infrastructure needed for advanced automation being a fully closed loop. These systems have the capacity to self-maintain and self-repair with little or no human intervention, keeping themselves in the condition and within the parameters set by the engineers. Systems such as transport networks, power generation, water treatment plants, mines, material processing plants, factories and other industrial systems. If these systems are all automated and interface with each other, the means for production for humanity will be ultimately efficient and scalable.

These complex systems can be developed using the power of open collaborative design, which has the additional benefit of giving transparency to their development. Having the industrial infrastructure fully automated means it can be easily scaled up to provide everything that the global population requires with ultimate flexibility, and it frees people up to do things that people are good at and want to do.