The past hundred or so years have witnessed technology and machinery develop in unimaginable measures. Nowadays, everything from how we spend our leisure time and how we shop to the way we converse with one another are dominated by technology.
It’s difficult to travel far without encountering the supplement of man by machine. From movie theatre ticket kiosks to supermarket tills, numerous tasks can be completed without the need of a human worker. But is this automatically a good thing? What will afflict humanity if the need for us to work is diminished? Or is this an improbable prediction which is unlikely to actually materialise?
The key reason machines are now so greatly integrated into the working world is cost. Generally if the installment and operation of a machine is cheaper than the equivalent human will be to employ, it makes financial sense for a company to choose machine over man.
But when met by a machine instead of a person’s face, does it have an effect on our day to day lives? Regular connections with other people is essential. While it might seem insignificant to say hello and goodbye to the till assistant in the supermarket, pleasantries in fact have a crucial positive influence on our moods. These types of connections are substantially more important to some people in society. For example, the elderly can benefit significantly from a pleasant chat with a shop employee, as they might not have people with which to talk when at home. This minor interaction between them and another person is vital to their wellbeing. In addition, the usage of today’s technology can be a frightening task to our elders, and they can find incredible difficulties in the operation of machines such as self service tills. When considering this, it is obvious that modern-day machinery will never be suitable for every individual, meaning that a human employee will always have to be on hand to assist.
Machines are however, wide-spread and flourishing in other industries. SCADA, (standing for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) is a process monitoring system suited to use in settings like factories and warehouses. SCADA implements a system of sensors to manage equipment and accumulate data, which it then transmits to a central computer system. The system can eliminate the potential for human error, making sure that machinery runs as efficiently and smoothly as possible. In lots of ways, systems such as SCADA are an indispensable improvement to many working environments. It may be sad that such systems can make formerly valuable employees redundant, but in factory and warehouse locations, machinery is not troubled by user issues. They can also vastly improve the safety in a workplace, bettering the working environment for other employees.
But just what should happen to the world if machines carry on evolving and human labour is only required to correctly maintain the machines? Work is a crucial part of a functional and satisfying life, yet a lot of us don’t value its significance to our lives. Work allows humans a purpose. We need a purpose as a motive for us to live day by day. If technology were to shed the necessity for us to work, what then would become of the human race? Many prophetic examples of such a scenario can be seen in the media channels. Lately the animated film ‘Wall-e’, imagined a heavily obese race of humans employing floating chairs to move around, existing in a life of little, if any, real purpose. Although this is an extreme scenario, the frightening thing is that there is no way we can really know what is actually conceivable, and what the future will bring.
Recent times have seen machines evolve at speeds faster than man could ever hope to replicate, and there is no indication that this is halting. Quite often, such progress may be good for business, but cause the customer and workforce to suffer. However with the use of systems like SCADA, technological development is essentially a great thing.
With all of this in mind, perhaps all we can do is try to evolve around technology and machines, as their is little hope of slowing their evolvement ourselves. After all, we still have the real control – there will always be an ‘off’ switch.
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