
Automation is old – and so is the hype around new waves of invention
Hype around automation may lead to misdirected investment and technological dead ends, writes Martin C.W. Walker
With advances in artificial intelligence (AI), it seems that the range of economic activities that can and will be automated is now limitless. Not for the first time, society is both thrilled and fearful of the opportunities. The 1950s were the “Push Button Age”, the 60s brought the “Information Age” and the 1970s the time of the industrial robots, followed by a variety of other “ages”. However, will we really see a time where everything is finally automated or just a continuation of the waves of automation that have been going on for hundreds of years? Waves that so far have always left humans with work to do. The answer lies in part in understanding the basic principles behind automation. Principles found in history rather than hype and explained in my recent paper on automation in banking.
Tools – Human tool use began even before our species of humans existed. Even today, tool use is not unique to our species, and a variety of animals from the great apes to parrots use naturally occurring objects as hammers, drills, straws and many other types of tools. What identifies our species as having a special talent for automation has been finding ways to make tools that can be driven by forces other than our own physical strength.
Powered tools – Practical automation dates back only a few thousand years, with devices such as flour mills powered by wind or water. Early forms of automation were not restricted to the creation of tangible outputs such as flour. Almost as old as the water mill is the water clock, which provided data, i.e. the time of day. For most of recorded history, automation was limited to a very limited set of activities, powered by wind, water or animals. It was only with the industrial revolution that more sophisticated methods of generating power (i.e. steam engines) were used for automation and more sophisticated goods, such as fabrics produced by automated machines.
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