Automation in Technology

Abstract

Over the last few years, we have really seen a big explosion in new technologies that businesses and different industries are beginning to implement and build on. One of the main type of tech that we have seen start to develop and disrupt is the entire idea of automation, especially in data. Some of the different ways we are seeing this tech grow is around data analytics, and most publicly, the auto industry. When dealing with automation, many people wonder, “will AI destroy our jobs or will it be a force for good?” (Press). We have already seen certain aspects of our workforce be affected by AI and automated technology, so the biggest question for this type of technology is where will we draw the line so our workforce isn’t affected anymore?
 

Benefits of Automated Systems in the Workplace

When discussing automated systems, one of the biggest benefactors has been in the workplace for factory workers. Automated machines have greatly increased the production rates for factory workers, while at the same time significantly increasing the product output quality. Back in the 1700s and 1800s many factory workers endured brutal workweeks and had horrible work environments. By automating different production machines, it has resulted in easier work schedules and shorter workdays for the employees. One of the biggest benefactors that we see through automated systems is the output we receive from the machines. Typically many individuals think that humans are flawless in their workplace, and that we have extremely good workmanship. Unfortunately in many cases, this isn’t true. We have found that by using machines during manufacturing that automated processes have significantly lower variability than that of an actual human being. This results in “greater control and consistency of product quality. Also, increased process control makes more efficient use of materials, resulting in less scrap.” (Groover).

We have seen technology evolve over recent years and there are many numerous types of applications of automated systems whether we notice them or not. One of the most well known automated systems, which probably 99% of us would wish we didn’t have, is the form of communication for many different companies. Many telecommunication companies use automated calls to reach their clients. This decreases the amount of staff they need to hire to try to reach their customers saving them money for overhead. Thanks to Hollywood, one of the main uses of automation in airfare has become extremely relevant. In many movies we always see the airplane pilots flick “on” the autopilot switch, so they can leave the cockpit to go do whatever they need to do, whether use the restroom or just stretch their legs.
 

Autonomous Cars

Back in the 1980s one of the most iconic TV series in history captured the eyes of people all around the world attempting to predict what the future might look like. This show is the Jetsons! This cartoon show had a family known as the Jetsons who lived in essentially a utopian future where people lived in the sky, employees only worked three days a week, and everyone drove cars that had the capabilities of flying anywhere someone wanted. While most of these attributes might be years away for our society, one of the main things that we are starting to implement with technology is the automated car, or autonomous vehicle.

There are definitely some big issues that come into play when it comes to autonomous cars but extremely beneficial to society. There are numerous studies that show how controlling the speed of cars and how they travel would make it not only easier for everyone to travel, but also cheaper. It would save enormous amounts of gasoline.

The big concern about autonomous cars is a four letter word- data! Autonomous cars collect data constantly while they are moving around. When we are looking around in the car and see “Stop” signs, snowing conditions, or even people walking or riding a bike. These autonomous vehicles need to be able to collect this data in order for them to make decisions on how to react. The amount of data that these vehicles send to the cloud is enormous! Right now, “a modern car already generates 25Gb of data an hour” (Wells). An organization called “comma.ai” who has been working on building autonomous cars stated that their cars create “80Gb of data generated during 7 ¼ hours of driving” (Wells). This is a pretty significant amount of data that these vehicles are creating. If you don’t know, this data has a pretty nice price tag on it. This data gives information on where the car is, footage of the surrounding area, traffic accidents, the weather, or even just passengers in the car.

This type of data that is being acquired has a pretty significant issue that Congress is currently dealing with in relation to Facebook and how they use their data acquired from their website/mobile app. With automated cars, one of the biggest concerns we need to have is the privacy and security for these types of vehicles. Our privacy decreases the more we use technology because typically many of the organizations providing the tech services want to have as much information about you as possible- this is one way for them to make money. If these cars don’t handle this data properly, and information about where people are traveling or see by the cameras in the vehicles is put into the wrong hands it could end up leading the users to not trust the vehicles and possibly not use them. Security is always a huge factor when dealing with anything related to technology. These automated cars could easily be prone to “car hacking”. We saw this occur back in 2014 when a Jeep Grand Cherokee was remotely hacked, the transmission was killed and was prone to “vehicular cyber sabotage” (Greenberg). Following news of this, Chrysler recalled 1.4 million affected vehicles and sent them USB drives with software to prevent this from happening in the future. While this Jeep wasn’t an autonomous vehicle, hackers were still able to completely shut down a car and leave it completely disabled. If this type of sabotage were done to a fully autonomous car, they could end up having complete control over the vehicle. That’s a pretty scary thought!
 

Stock Market and Bots

As the stock market has recently been introduced to technology, more and more people are leaning towards using robots to trade their investments. A trading bot is “an automated trader that buys and sells automatically, usually in the short term market” (Tam). This market of investing is growing exponentially! It’s extremely difficult to pinpoint the exact amount of money that is invested in quantitative robots; although, “some estimates are as high as $500 billion” (Burger). One of the reasons that people are able to put more and more money into these markets is due to many companies allowing for a significant increase in leverage for their investors. However, these robots aren’t always helpful for investors. One of the biggest problems that trading bots created, occurred back in 1987. This was known as the “Black Friday Wall Street crash”. Equities on this day dropped by more than 30%! The “first generation of bots, which sold stocks automatically when they fell below a certain price”, can be given the blame for this massive drop (Tam).

One of the other large markets that many people are beginning to invest their fiat into is the cryptocurrency market. This market is dominated by trading bots, which is actually bad for the market because it can create manipulation. One of the examples that this occurred was just this past year- although you can see manipulation going on in cryptocurrency marketplaces almost constantly. Last November 29, investors saw how much money had been poured into Ethereum in 2017, rising by as much as 5,800 percent, so investors started putting money into the “Chinese equivalent” of Ethereum, known as NEO. The “price dropped from $34 to just $3.74 in a matter of seconds, before returning to $34” (Tam). This is just a single example of how algorithm bots are controlling the marketplace right now for cryptocurrency, and even the stock markets. This type of tactic of “pumping” the price of something became well known from the movie Wolf of Wall Street where Jordan Belfort pumped small stocks to make a massive amount of money. These “pump and dump” schemes occurred constantly back in the early nineties, and has become very prevalent in the cryptocurrency market as it has really gained popularity around the world.
 

Disadvantages of Automated Technology

While automated technology can bring great benefits to the community as well as business and investors, there are definitely some big issues that come along with it. One of the biggest problems associated with automated tech is the work displacement. We have seen this occur already in many restaurants. With companies like Sheetz, they don’t even need employees to receive customer’s orders. Other industries, which are experiencing displacement due to technology similar to Sheetz, are the various grocery stores. They don’t need to hire as many workers to checkout customers for their purchases; they just need to use the “self-checkout” machines.

Other disadvantages for automation include the capital required to invest in the automated equipment. To implement these types of systems can often cost millions of dollars for companies to design and implement (Groover). These machines can often cost a lot of money to operate, and the upkeep is expensive. The big question for many of these types of operating systems is where do we as a society “draw the line” on the displacement of the workers. I personally believe that the displacement will continue to occur as this tech exponentially develops. The technology that we are building has a ton of benefit for society, but we need to be very careful that we don’t go too far to the point where it negatively impacts the economy.
 

Resources

Burger, D. (n.d.). The U.S. Stock Market Belongs to Bots. Retrieved from Bloomberg website: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-15/it-s-a-quant-s-stock-market-as-computer-programs-keep-on-buying

Camhi, J. (n.d.). The Benefits of Automating Data Management Tasks. Retrieved from BankTech website: http://www.banktech.com/data-and-analytics/the-benefits-of-automating-data-management-tasks/d/d-id/1297304

Greenberg, A. (n.d.). THE FBI WARNS THAT CAR HACKING IS A REAL RISK. Retrieved from Wired website: https://www.wired.com/2016/03/fbi-warns-car-hacking-real-risk/

Groover, M. P. (n.d.). Advantages and disadvantages of automation. Retrieved from Brittanica website: https://www.britannica.com/technology/automation/Advantages-and-disadvantages-of-automation

Lo, E. (n.d.). Will data analysis be automated? Retrieved from Data Column website: https://datacolumn.wordpress.ncsu.edu/blog/2016/01/04/will-data-analysis-be-automated/

Manyika, J. (n.d.). What’s now and next in analytics, AI, and automation. Retrieved from McKinsey website: https://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/digital-disruption/whats-now-and-next-in-analytics-ai-and-automation

Press, G. (2017, July 29). 6 Hot AI Automation Technologies Destroying And Creating Jobs. Retrieved from Forbes website: https://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2017/07/29/6-hot-ai-automation-technologies-destroying-and-creating-jobs/#28ba84d06b13

Rimmer, M. (n.d.). Expert View: Can Data Science Be Automated? Retrieved from The Innovation Enterprise website: https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/expert-insight-can-data-science-be-automated

Tam, T. (n.d.). How bots are manipulating cryptocurrency prices. Retrieved from Venture Beat website: https://venturebeat.com/2017/12/14/how-bots-are-manipulating-cryptocurrency-prices/

Wells, P. (n.d.). Automated cars and data. Retrieved from Hackernoon website: https://hackernoon.com/automated-cars-and-data-786dfb1e3eb4