Automated inspection machines and artificial intelligence aren’t designed to cost human workers their jobs; in fact, quite the opposite (Schools not preparing children to succeed in an AI future, MPs warn, theguardian.com, 12 October).
Working side by side with humans, AI technology increases productivity in factories, eliminating the need for costly precision fixtures, and allowing different parts to be processed and inspected without changing tools. This assists human workers with inspection processes, relieving them of more commonplace work, and allowing them to be redeployed to tasks that robots cannot do.
In the future, inspection benches will include space for an operator and a robot to work in partnership as part of the quality control process of production. This will vastly improve the performance of the business in question. Engineering used to be seen as a boring subject, but the latest technologies offer those coming into the industry a broader avenue of development and research to the traditional computer programming routes as a career path. Industrial automation and the factory of tomorrow – Industry 4.0 – are driving the industry to find new ways to fit artificial intelligence into factories.
Earl Yardley
Director, Industrial Vision Systems
• At a time when we are facing a series of massive problems – increased demands on our care and education services, a mental health epidemic, ongoing terrorism, global warming – it is surely premature to talk of a coming loss of jobs to machines (Will a robot be doing your job in 2050?, 13 October). These are crises of a kind that can only be solved by the employment, over many years, of an army of dedicated professional and semi-professional human staff.
Bernard Cummings
Erith, Kent
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
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