I am Robotruck
This article was linked to on slashdot recently.
Nov. 6, 2008 — The largest truck in the world is about to become the largest robotic vehicle in the world. Computer scientists from Carnegie Mellon University have teamed up with engineers from Caterpillar to automate the 700-ton trucks, which are made to haul loads up to 240 tons from mines.
That’s nearly two million pounds of metal, fuel and stone powered by a 3,550-horsepower, 24-valve engine moving at up to 42 miles per hour, with software and a robot at the wheel.
Autonomous vehicle technology is pretty much in its infancy,” said Tony Stentz, a professor at CMU involved in the project. Stentz expects that over the next five to 10 years, the technology will expand to areas beyond mining, eventually finding its way into consumer cars and trucks.
Catepillar’s soon-to-be-automated hauling trucks will be the largest but not the first. Caterpillar’s rival, Japan-based Komatsu, already runs automated trucks at the Gaby mine in Chile. Rio Tinto, a British/Australian mining company, recently announced plans to fully automate its Pilbara iron ore mines in Australia, including its Komatsu trucks, by this November.”
Does this article cause anyone else to flashbacks from every futuristic real time strategy game you’ve ever played? Now, they just need an automated constructor that builds military bases from the resources that the drones mine. Then, our automated army will be prepared to push forward, colonize the universe, and defeat the Zerg.
On a more realistic note…
It’ll be interesting to see which jobs can become automated over the next few decades. You might be able to tag down a driverless taxi. So far, we’ve yet to make a driverless vehicle that does well on complicated courses or in traffic. But, we are getting closer every year. In the DARPA competition, every year the cars have done significantly better than the previous year.
Automation isn’t going to end with cars. You may have already heard of Serendipity, a computer program that writes classical music. Our brains are material based. Theoretically, it should be possible to create robots that can accomplish every task that humans fulfill.
Kelly says:
November 22nd, 2008 at 11:25 pm
First off, I’d like to comment about the new and improved look of Boldly Go! It looks cleaner, more organized and just plain cool.
As far as most jobs becoming automated in the future, I’m not sure how I feel about that possibility. There may be jobs for those who are responsible for repairing the systems of the robots. But that’s about the only job I can think at the moment where humans will be needed.
I feel that is a possibility that’s far into the future. We first must tackle a multitude of energy and environmental problems to ensure we still have a future on this planet.