Talk:Automation

Automation is not the same as mechanization

Examples of textile machines are not automation and neither do Luddites apply. Automation means that the machine or process does not require constant operator attention.

An early example was the flour mill in Colonial America that was self feeding and regulating and spread the ground flour for grinding. The mill used a variety of conveyors that were all run automatically.

Watt's centrifugal govenor to regulate steam valve opening for his steam engines is an automatic control. James Clerk Maxwell developed control theory from Watt's govenor. After Maxwel's controllers became widely available for regulating machinery and processes. Automation predates computer control by decades. Computer control added to existing factories did not result in significant labor savings.

Open Access Statement in Sources

Hi @Wiae, I would like to ask clarifications with regards to the following statement in the Sources section that was deleted:

This article incorporates text from a free content work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 (license statement/permission). Text taken from In Brief to The State of Food and Agriculture 2022 – Leveraging automation in agriculture for transforming agrifood systems, FAO, FAO. To learn how to add open license text to Wikipedia articles, please see this how-to page. For information on reusing text from Wikipedia, please see the terms of use.

Whenever I used text from this In brief (whose license has been transformed to comply to the Wikimedia one) text was copy-pasted. In all other cases, text has been rephrased.

Thanks, ~~~~

DanSD19 (talk) 10:17, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Hi DanSD19, if there's text that's in the "In brief" document and isn't in https://www.fao.org/3/cb9479en/cb9479en.pdf then it should be okay to include here. But the full SOFA 2022 has a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO license that prevents commercial reuse, which is incompatible with Wikipedia's license. So text can't be copy-pasted from the SOFA 2022 into our article without a rewrite.

It's possible I made a mistake and removed a sentence that had been taken only from the "In Brief". If so you should be able to go ahead and reinsert it. Thanks! /wiae /tlk 11:16, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Limitations Section

I am not up for the task of providing all the sources that would be needed to properly argue that, technology is not only at the point where machine can perform any tasks a human can (one example that surprises some people is impregnation and birthing a human), but is also capable of doing things which humans cannot do. Feel free to suggest specific examples to prove me wrong and I’ll address each with a source or sources that prove otherwise. The accurate statement would be, the limitations of automation is not that the technology isn’t capable, it’s capable but doesn’t provide any benefit and/or creates negative effects (typically it’s more expensive). Also, under the Paradox of Automation section, Lisanne Bainbridge didn’t thoroughly investigate, if she had she would have learned that a.i. is capable of recognizing errors and will adjust. The example with the airplane is pretty weak, because you can reverse the roles, pilots make fatal mistakes too and that’s where an a.i. could come in. I believe people are too focused on comparisons and not focusing on the balancing through cooperation. Creatives that see a.i. as a tool or a collaborator are not only still making money but are doing so with less investment in time. Dyer Debate (talk) 09:25, 29 December 2023 (UTC)