Automation

The impact of automation on individuals and societies has been profound. On one level, many otherwise unpleasant and/or time-consuming tasks are now being performed by machines: dishwashing being one of the obvious examples. The transformation of the communications industry is another example of how automation has enhanced the lives of people worldwide. Today, millions of telephone calls that once would have passed through human operators are now handled by automatic switching machines.

Other applications of automation in communications systems include local area networks (LAN) and communications satellites. A LAN operates like an automated telephone company, however, they can transmit not only voice, but also digital data between terminals in the system. Satellites, necessary for transmitting telephone or video signals throughout the world, depend on automated guidance systems to place and retain the satellites in predetermined orbits.

For banking, automatic tellers are ubiquitous. The medical industry employs robots to aid the doctor in analyzing and treating patients. Automatic reservation, navigation, and instrument landing systems, not to mention automatic pilots have revolutionized the travel industry.

However, automation has also resulted in drastic dislocations in employment patterns. When one machine can do the work of ten workers, most or all of those people must be relocated or retrained to learn newer and higher skills. Whether or not this is a wholly negative impact has been strongly debated. As population and consumer demand for the products of automation increases, new jobs have been created.

Positive impacts on employment patterns include computerized programs that help designers in many fields develop and test new concepts quickly, without ever building a physical prototype. Automated systems also make it much easier for people to carry out the work they do in non-traditional places. They may be able to stay home, for example, and do their jobs by communicating with other individuals and machines by means of highly automated communications systems.