the.com/automation
the art of teaching machines to do your job so you can do nothing
means the use of machines, software, or systems to perform tasks with minimal human intervention.
from From the Greek 'automatos,' meaning 'acting of one's own will' or 'self-moving' — built from 'autos' (self) and a root tied to thinking and willing. The Greeks used it for things that moved as if alive: self-opening temple doors, mechanical birds, marvels that seemed to act on their own. 'Automation' itself is a much younger industrial coinage, popularized in the mid-20th century factory world (Ford's engineers get much of the credit for spreading it), stitching that ancient 'self-acting' idea onto the assembly line.
- word origin
- Coined at Ford in 1947 for the assembly line
- luddite myth
- Workers smashed looms, not progress, fearing lost wages
- jevons paradox
- Efficiency often increases consumption, not reduces it
- first robot
- Unimate worked a GM plant in 1961
- automation paradox
- More automation makes the human operator more critical
amazon warehouse robots — over 520,000 robotic drive units deployed across fulfillment centers as of 2024
foxconn manufacturing — replaced 30,000 workers with robots at shenzhen facility in 2015