Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 177 posts

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#161

Post by closeparen »

mitochondrion wrote: post #153
knn wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a great opportunity for those automating. I'm totally for automation as it creates wealth and I think is good for humanity in the long run, but people suffer from automation (losing jobs, homes, provision for their families) in the short term. People suffering from automation is a major reason why Trump was elected. It's highly insensitive to not be aware of the pain that is caused by automation by technologists…

For the most part, automation doesn't create wealth. Sometimes it dramatically improves the functionality of an operation, but mostly it just lets private enterprise replace humans with capital. Thus, it enormously increases the wealth of the owners of that capital, and moderately increases the wealth of the managers of that capital, but overall wealth is not increased, only distributed differently. Also, to the exte…

>wealth is not increased, only distributed differently

When we have the technology to meet the population's needs without its involvement in production, we have something much better than wealth: we have our lives back, our time and energy, our freedom from wage slavery.

We have government for the distribution problem.

The most viscerally disturbing thing I've ever seen a human do, is wish that others be forced to expend useless, unnecessary effort to "earn" what we could just hand out.

I understand the argument about stealing person A's labor output and giving it to person B, but no individual has a legitimate moral claim on the output of a fully automated process.

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#163

Post by bogomipz »

fokov wrote: post #96
ryanmarsh wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't have to keep 100 hands on a drilling site for the peak demand if you can effectively schedule. Exactly, which is why automation is going to kill so many white-collar jobs. "Effectively schedule" means let a computer do it, not Sally Scheduler who has been doing it in Excel only because they forced her to stop using paper and pen. This article is basically saying "the planes practically fly themselves", an…

We are already there in other sectors. I have worked in Workforce Management and Optimization (WFM/WFO) for the past few years. Scheduling is already common in areas where demand can be easily captured, for example retail banking and contact centers. We use the past data plus other "stuff" to determine the given workload for a position/activity and then schedule employees based on several factors among them are min/m…

>"Honestly, I am pessimistic of the future because I see it this way and do not see any political system in my country that is trying to prepare for mass unemployment or people without relevant skills"

Is that the US? The reasons I ask is because the Trump administration seems to be under the impression that they can "undo" globalization and manufacturing jobs and coal industry jobs are coming back. They seem to be intent on fixing the the former wave of job disruption instead of focusing on the next one. I'm afraid the former ship has sailed and not sure it can be fixed but at least the next one could be prepared for. And there was almost no mention of this on the campaign trail from any candidates.

Interesting Alvin Toffler who died recently and there was a discussion about him on HN talked about many of these things( disruption in post industrial society) that are coming to fruition now in his book Future Shock which was published in 1970.

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#164

Post by abecedarius »

SEJeff wrote: post #152
bduerst wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I have to move my entire extended family to an orbital? What if their demands aren't met there? You're missing the point about spatial scarcity and demand.

I'm guessing you've not read the series, because the context is seemingly entirely lost on you. Culture citizens are free to go anywhere they want and do literally whatever they want. Small orbitals are ~20x the size of earth whereas large ones are 200x the size of earth. Also, you can live on planets if you wish, but the idea is seen as very quaint and generally not a very "culture" thing to do. When you can move li…

It's not dwelt on much, but to make this work requires restricting production of humans. The fictional mechanism seems to be a universal sense in the Culture that reproducing at more than mildly above the replacement rate is gauche and atavistic. Presumably it's nudges from the Minds keeping us collectively in bounds.

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#165

Post by philipkglass »

abecedarius wrote: post #164
SEJeff wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing you've not read the series, because the context is seemingly entirely lost on you. Culture citizens are free to go anywhere they want and do literally whatever they want. Small orbitals are ~20x the size of earth whereas large ones are 200x the size of earth. Also, you can live on planets if you wish, but the idea is seen as very quaint and generally not a very "culture" thing to do. When you can move li…

It's not dwelt on much, but to make this work requires restricting production of humans. The fictional mechanism seems to be a universal sense in the Culture that reproducing at more than mildly above the replacement rate is gauche and atavistic. Presumably it's nudges from the Minds keeping us collectively in bounds.

The 20 richest countries[1] in the world are already below replacement total fertility rate. Most of the top 50 are. And even now, in a rich country like the US, about half of pregnancies are unplanned. Birth rates would drop a lot if pregnancies were only possible when both partners consciously opt in.

Obviously the replacement fertility rate is going to be a lot lower in a society where people can live as long as they please and most choose centuries of life. But the Culture is also vastly wealthier than any real-life low-fertility nation. There's perfect birth control for both sexes and a general absence of destructive impulses among biological Culture citizens (due either to selection pressures or editing). I'd guess that the Minds don't need to nudge much if at all.

Having advanced that argument, I wonder if there is any consistent relationship between material prosperity and fertility. Would a weakly post-scarcity society[2] have higher or lower fertility rates than rich nations do today? There'd be none of the security-in-old-age pressures that drive high fertility in poor nations, but also none of the economic penalties to child rearing that discourage high fertility among the educated middle class in current developed economies.

[1] Ranked by nominal GDP per capita.

[2] A fully robotized productive economy, but we can't just gin up atoms and energy like in the fictional Culture. Also no FTL or teleportation. Real physics only. It's the Silver Plan of post-scarcity, as compared to the Culture's Unobtainium Plan.

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#166

Post by abecedarius »

philipkglass wrote: post #165
abecedarius wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not dwelt on much, but to make this work requires restricting production of humans. The fictional mechanism seems to be a universal sense in the Culture that reproducing at more than mildly above the replacement rate is gauche and atavistic. Presumably it's nudges from the Minds keeping us collectively in bounds.

The 20 richest countries[1] in the world are already below replacement total fertility rate. Most of the top 50 are. And even now, in a rich country like the US, about half of pregnancies are unplanned. Birth rates would drop a lot if pregnancies were only possible when both partners consciously opt in. Obviously the replacement fertility rate is going to be a lot lower in a society where people can live as long as t…

There are sects in rich countries with fertility many times replacement. They're easy to overlook because they started tiny and it's only a few generations after the demographic transition. Lower birthrates in the general population only shorten the time to the new growth mode.

The Culture is not limited to biological rates of reproduction. That nobody ever sets off a human forkbomb is a collective choice, somehow.

(Sketchy reply because I'm on a tablet.)

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#167

Post by cyrks »

chrisbrandow wrote: post #36

a more compelling graph would have been jobs/rig. The drop in jobs sure looks like it approximately matches rig demand with a 3-6 month lag. I am sure robots will replace a lot of these jobs, but I don't see this article providing much evidence that it is happening substantially.

Because of the direct correlation with # of rigs, the job loss will be linear with the loss of # rigs. However, the current situation is that each rig that is still working is getting more efficient and productive on a daily basis. So much so now, that there are fewer rigs coming online to produce the same amount of oil that we had before the drop in oil prices. This is where the job loss will be. Some of it is due to automation, but most of it is due to the efficiency gains in the drilling and completion process itself.

http://www.otterwoodcapital.com/static/media/uploads/2016/03...

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#168

Post by logfromblammo »

mitochondrion wrote: post #155
logfromblammo wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is something I don't really understand. In a sandbox game like Minecraft or Dwarf Fortress, once I have met all the objectives built into the game, I can invent new and ridiculous objectives, such as "build a fortress entirely out of obsidian 200 z-levels high". Once you're rich, and can no longer spend all your income on everything you can think to consume yourself, you can buy a megaproject. Run a political c…

They didn't get rich by spending everything they had, they got rich by saving (and investing) everything they could.

It doesn't matter how they got rich; what matters is what they need to do going forward.

As they say, "past performance is not indicative of future results".

If the ultra-rich do not spend enough, they might begin to undermine the foundations of the economy. Then, if enough people can trace the apparent cause of their suffering to the wealth inequalities, they will start killing and/or looting rich people, possibly without regard to their individual conduct.

So by all means, if you think you're strong enough, go ahead and hoard ever increasing amounts of wealth, without limit. There's a distinct likelihood that your estates will never be besieged by hordes of starving peasants, and that you or your heirs will never be kidnapped for ransom (or revenge) if you ever attempt to travel beyond your own holdings, and that you will never be shaken down by corrupt officials. The less people perceive the systems of civilization to be fair, the less apt they are to respect its rules of conduct. It only takes one pissed-off person to make your life Hell, and there are 7 billion candidates out there just waiting for you to give them a good reason.

We got from the beginning of the industrial age to now by burning coal and oil. But if we continue to do so now, it is likely to eventually make the surface of the entire planet uninhabitable, rather than just Beijing. Responsible people have therefore been shifting to more technically advanced sources--such as wind, solar, hydro, and fission--to meet their power needs. In the same way, people who have grown so rich that they could buy anything they might possibly want must alter their habits to avoid poisoning their own environment.

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#169

Post by sammydavis »

mitochondrion wrote: post #153
knn wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a great opportunity for those automating. I'm totally for automation as it creates wealth and I think is good for humanity in the long run, but people suffer from automation (losing jobs, homes, provision for their families) in the short term. People suffering from automation is a major reason why Trump was elected. It's highly insensitive to not be aware of the pain that is caused by automation by technologists…

For the most part, automation doesn't create wealth. Sometimes it dramatically improves the functionality of an operation, but mostly it just lets private enterprise replace humans with capital. Thus, it enormously increases the wealth of the owners of that capital, and moderately increases the wealth of the managers of that capital, but overall wealth is not increased, only distributed differently. Also, to the exte…

What libertine thing are you referring to? Equal rights for gay people, women making the same wages as men for equivalent work? I'm from a southern state, and I hear a lot of grousing about uppity women and black folks (and people don't use words as nice as that). They want revenge. That's the kind of thing that I see people complaining about liberals. And that kind of behavior is ugly and unneeded. I can think of things that appear as silly to me, like safe spaces, trigger warnings, but I've never encountered such things in real life.

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#170

Post by coolgeek »

closeparen wrote: post #161
mitochondrion wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the most part, automation doesn't create wealth. Sometimes it dramatically improves the functionality of an operation, but mostly it just lets private enterprise replace humans with capital. Thus, it enormously increases the wealth of the owners of that capital, and moderately increases the wealth of the managers of that capital, but overall wealth is not increased, only distributed differently. Also, to the exte…

>wealth is not increased, only distributed differently When we have the technology to meet the population's needs without its involvement in production, we have something much better than wealth: we have our lives back, our time and energy, our freedom from wage slavery. We have government for the distribution problem. The most viscerally disturbing thing I've ever seen a human do, is wish that others be forced to ex…

> The most viscerally disturbing thing I've ever seen a human do, is wish that others be forced to expend useless, unnecessary effort to "earn"

Seriously? That tops eating out of a dumpster (literally, like eating unwrapped, half-eaten discards)? Or defecating in a stairwell?

> what we could just hand out

It didn't work as charity. It isn't working as redistribution through taxation. What's your proposed solution?

Post reply on HN