Future Operators?

This came through on my alerts this morning. Technology is advancing and in our system of business, it is unstoppable.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-caterpillar-services-technology-focus-idUKKBN26X1ET

Ive seen this coming for awhile now. Still have to have us techs..............so far.

Until the machines self diagnose and call for a self driving truck to haul out to a Dealer Shop!! That will be fun to watch, first few should be as good as Musk's Starships landings!! I want to see the battery pack for a Excavator that size for ALL Electric!!

So kids of today that stay home and computer games can now get a job!!!

Im going to play the devils a$$hole here. Just think about it before you get too pissed at me.
There comes a time when its cheaper because people as a "whole" have priced their self's out of a job , " Its not just the employees wage but all the taxes, insurance, workers comp, ext ext ext" . Its not just the employee at fault here its also the other A$$holes that have their hand into that paycheck.
Also did you read the part about the person could be on the other side of the world . There goes some more jobs to china.

The way I see it....it’ll replace the people who weren’t all the great to start with. If you’re a good operator then I’d care to wager no machine can do the same work. It just eliminates all the a$$holes you work around and makes the porta-john last that much longer!!

If there wasn't assholes, there would be no one to perform practical jokes on.

I don't buy into this crap that making a livable wage is somehow me being an Ahole. The billionaires have the uneducated believing that the problems are all caused by the poor and middle class. Maybe the real issue is the billionaires making their money only paying 10% on a capital gain and no wages while the poor and middle class pay 15% on up for every dollar they earn. Did you know Amazon paid no taxes in 2017 and 2018 and 1.2% for 2019. But their employees making $8 to $12 per hour are considered poison when they consider a union for any more money.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-taxes-1-2-percent-13-billion-2019/

I blame the Insurance companies, both health and liability, and the hospitals for that matter, some of the higher ups in small hospitals take rediculous bonuses.

Just my $.02 on the subject..

A week or so ago I was having a conversation with the lead field engineer on a $100M expansion and renovation project we are currently on about how it's really amazing we are able build these projects with the amount of stupid we have to deal with.

This autonomous equipment can work flawlessly 24 - 7 in a perfect environment that's been laid out on a computer screen and meticulously programmed into their computer chips.

Now enter the real world commercial or large multi-family site that changes daily - the bigger the project the more the changes. The reality is the job site is a constantly changing "organism" that the human workers must adapt too and make changes in order to get it completed on time and on budget - hence the conversation with the field engineer.

Humans - even the dumb ones we have to deal with - can adapt, stand there looking stupid, go home or over come the issue and continue on building. How big will the jobsite trailer need to be to fit all the programmers needed for dealing with all the same variables of a modern day job site?

Now I'm not foolish enough to dismiss this technology will never come to fruition as it ultimately will, however I am old enough to know that I will be comfortably sitting in a lounge chair on the Pacific side of some Central American country enjoying retirement by the time this technology puts me out of business.

On second thought renting out fully wired double wide office trailers for the gaggle of programmers needed to run these new autonomous machines might be a profitable retirement business..

Yep, unrealistic on a real site, looks good on the demo field though like most stuff.

Should put them on old Power Station sites, all the buried RIP piping conduit and electrical cables for construction, buried debris of who knows why or what was buried, striking abandoned materials thought to have been hauled away or a miss positioned lay that a surveyor marked incorrectly for a site print on a bad day. Sets a different mindset as to what can happen.

I had a dream.....actually a few dreams, about a track hoe operator actually in the cab......but instead of working joysticks to control the machine.....he had on a head set, like a virtual reality set up in which he controlled the machine by thoughts. When is that cake job coming?

Maybe that would happen until a bee/wasp gets in the cab!!!

well, its coming whether we like it or not. look at how robotics changed manufacturing and production. its also coming to agriculture--gps, auto-guidance and auto-steering have been around for many years and now all the big players are developing fully autonomous machines. not to sound overly dismal, but as humans, we have created our own demise

I think this comment from the article is somewhat enlightening............
"But it’s early days, and such tech remains a niche part of Caterpillar’s operations. Though it does not break out the revenue from technology sales, the rising demand is unlikely to make a major impact anytime soon on the group’s revenue, which stood at about $54 billion last year."

The more crap they put on machines the more crap to go wrong. Just look at the the pollution control ,you can hardly keep the new ones running compared to old ones

I find it funny that a pandemic is fueling this trend. Really now, last time I checked equipment operators sit alone in a climate-controlled cab. That's the ultimate social distancing right there.

I can't quite wrap my head around the remote controlled equipment. Does anybody else think it'd be difficult to judge distance or have trouble gauging the surroundings through a TV screen?

Not only that but just not having the feedback through the joysticks and controls. Or even just feeling the machine responding to the work. A good operator utilizes all their senses to work safely and productively. I'm just not seeing that happen with remote controlled units.

Years ago (mid 70s )while working on a site a drainage contractor rocked up and started laying pipes. It was the first time I had seen a laser being used so I had to have a chat with him. One of the questions I asked was " how much did the laser cost "? 6 grand was the reply to which I let out a whistle. Yeah he continued " one mans yearly wage that I don't have to employ. Next year is cream".
Now today with technology replacing people were do the people go to earn a living? on the dole que or a life of crime, who the hell knows but one thing is for sure those things cost the community and the TAX PAYER.
During the 1929/30s depression President Hoover pumped millions of dollars into the top end of town of which 50% got to the people who needed it most. Then along come a very enlightened First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt who told her husband to turn it around and shove the money into the bottom end. The simplicity of it is that for every dollar spent creates 3 dollars in the community. And that folks sent America on it's greatest nation building program ever and has been forgotten or ignored by people and politicians of all sides since. Heck Caterpillar wouldn't exist today but for that First Lady.

Unfortunately we're putting ourselves out of work. Simply too many people on the planet for the level of efficiency that technology has afforded us.