Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs • Hacker News Board

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#21

Post by ferongr » Tue, Jan 24, 2017, 6:38 PM UTC

gjkood wrote: post #15

Informative article, but a picture is worth a thousand words. While I appreciate the picture of a drill ship in the ocean, it would have been more informative to see a single picture of one of these robots. I guess since the focus of the article was the effect on related labor and not on the technology itself, a picture was deemed irrelevant. But when the title leads with 'Robots...' I want to see a picture of a robo…

I think that it's not really "robots" (it's click-bait) but rather greater automation of new platforms and ships, e.g. more networked sensors instead of analog gauges, servo-controlled valves etc. Also possibly robotic drill pipe handling (i.e. a purpose-built mechanism http://www.drillingcontractor.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09... ) Maybe an underwater drone or two for inspection instead of using divers.

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#22

Post by bluGill » Tue, Jan 24, 2017, 6:39 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #6

digikata wrote: post #2

I wonder if increased automation means poorer responses to emergencies because you have fewer humans there to respond with. On the other hand, maybe it means fewer emergencies because the automation makes fewer mistakes, or makes hard jobs easier and more consistent.

Often overlooked is the type of mistake, which it seems you are touching on with "poorer responses to emergencies". If humans make 10 mistakes over a time period compared to 1 for the automated system, it might look as if the humans are worse, but if the cost of the human mistakes averages to 5 for some theoretical cost scale (so 50 overall), but the automated mistake costs 100 because there isn't a good dynamic resp…

It only takes one human mistake that is 1000 to destroy all that. Many systems in oil refineries are automated because humans didn't want to shut the plant down where there was some trouble. Even when the problem is a predictable humans often refused to admit it they couldn't operate as is. (We know this pump is failing, the replacement won't arrive for 2 months though so we are going to continue as long as we can - once it fails we know we have 1 hour to hit the shutdown switch or the plant will explode)

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#23

Post by noobermin » Tue, Jan 24, 2017, 6:40 PM UTC

Random question, automation is inevitable without major changes to the current political/economic system (like BIG), but is one possible development is as the price of labor and setting up machines decrease, a larger number of plants/mines/drills could be opened, is this a possible development?

If such a development were to occur, of course, I personally would be in favor of environmentally conscious regulations.

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#24

Post by ohstopitu » Tue, Jan 24, 2017, 6:41 PM UTC

A family member used to be a Safety Engineer for ONGC and ADNOC. He had visited oil rigs for quite a bit early during his career and even back (1990s) then, most modern rigs were automated.

He used to tell me stories about how close shit would hit the fan because people became used to machines making decisions that they became a lot more lax - so companies even back then were trying their best to get rid of humans for such jobs.

That said, the most manpower needed is during the initial phase, after which you could safely run with almost half the crew.

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#25

Post by porpoisemonkey » Tue, Jan 24, 2017, 6:41 PM UTC

Eridrus wrote: post #17

porpoisemonkey wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it the incentive to automate is to 1) reduce costs and to 2) increase quality by standardizing the execution of complicated tasks. If this is true then as a general rule automation is going to target jobs of highly payed, semi-skilled workers. I think we can expect that these positions will become scarcer and scarcer as automation technologies are adopted. One area where there's a glut of highly paid…

Both opportunities and challenges, but people are working on it: https://www.flexport.com/blog/port-automation-oakland-rotter...

Thanks for the additional info.

I'm not sure how to feel about the increasing use of automation.

As a technologist I know that technology tends to increase efficiency and to some extent productivity which could allow us to scale up to projects of a magnitude never seen before in human history. (SpaceX's mission to colonize Mars comes to mind.)

As a human being I feel wholeheartedly for the people being displaced by the technology and the chaos it wreaks on their lives. I can imagine many of them may not be capable of adapting to this trend and will become completely marginalized in the workforce - relegated to having multiple low paying jobs.

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#26

Post by pizzetta » Tue, Jan 24, 2017, 6:43 PM UTC

noobermin wrote: post #23

Random question, automation is inevitable without major changes to the current political/economic system (like BIG), but is one possible development is as the price of labor and setting up machines decrease, a larger number of plants/mines/drills could be opened, is this a possible development? If such a development were to occur, of course, I personally would be in favor of environmentally conscious regulations.

I don't know much about this industry --as in I know nothing, but I think some of the costly parts are "exploration rights" as well as regulatory hurdles and costs. If you own some land with mineral rights, then you can do some of this but if you don't have land then obtaining that land and getting permission to explore is not a trivial task, I think.

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#27

Post by kin » Tue, Jan 24, 2017, 6:44 PM UTC

Kind of a tangent point but I really wonder how our society intends to solve the problem of automation replacing high paying skilled workers. Is education and relocation the only answer?

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#28

Post by pizzetta » Tue, Jan 24, 2017, 6:46 PM UTC

porpoisemonkey wrote: post #25

Eridrus wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both opportunities and challenges, but people are working on it: https://www.flexport.com/blog/port-automation-oakland-rotter...

Thanks for the additional info. I'm not sure how to feel about the increasing use of automation. As a technologist I know that technology tends to increase efficiency and to some extent productivity which could allow us to scale up to projects of a magnitude never seen before in human history. (SpaceX's mission to colonize Mars comes to mind.) As a human being I feel wholeheartedly for the people being displaced by t…

Any such "tech automation moratorium" would have to be a world-wide thing. It would not work if everyone abided by a moratorium but the US didn't or Every did but Australia --that would create an unfair advantage to the one doing all the automation where others had to pay for semi-skilled labor. There is no easy answer to the conundrum.

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#29

Post by pm90 » Tue, Jan 24, 2017, 6:46 PM UTC

Eridrus wrote: post #19

vkou wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't great news for those who 'don't care' about global warming - people hungry for fossil fuel jobs, either.

It's becoming less and less obvious that anyone in a position of power advocating for fossil fuel energy actually cares about the jobs.

It was always rather transparent that the "jobs" angle was a play by big oil to stoke populism for an objectively unpopular agenda (i.e. more drilling, extraction pollution). Once automation removes the need for low skilled laborers I would think this tactic would not be available anymore (but who knows, in this era of alternative facts).

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#30

Post by ancarda » Tue, Jan 24, 2017, 6:47 PM UTC

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #4

3 Years and half the workers: "Rigs have gotten so much more efficient that the shale industry can use about half as many as it did at the height of the boom in 2014 to suck the same amount of oil out of the ground." I'm more familiar with mining and it's fairly amazing the productivity improvements that went into that, those jobs are never coming back.

>those jobs are never coming back

Does it make anyone else sad to hear this? I see posts about robots/AI/etc automating away jobs and I try to be happy about that (who wouldn't want to never have to work again?) but I guess I'm saddened by some perceived loss of interesting opportunities.

If I wanted to get my hands dirty or get away from the world for a bit, before robots I could work on an oil rig for a bit. Now, that's not really an option.

Does anyone else have this sort of thought pattern? What replaces work you find enjoyable/exciting if it's not something you can do at home or by yourself in a post-AI, post-UBI world?