In the second instalment of the Australian Industrial Transformation Institute’s (AITI) Future of Work in the Digital Age seminar series Professor Hugh Bradlow, President of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, will argue that the advantage of automation is not productivity but the reduction, and possibly ultimately elimination, of human error.
The Promise of Digitilisation and Automation
1:30pm (ACST), 3 March 2022, Online (free)
The rise of the so-called “Internet of Things” (or “IoT”) over the last decade promises digitilisation of the physical world through measurement, analysis and control. This, combined with Artificial Intelligence, creates the promise of automating many tasks currently done by humans.
But the nature of this automation is yet to be understood. Although there is widespread fear that automation will supplant human jobs Prof. Bradlow argues there is a greater likelihood that automation will complement human work, not replace it. In other words, automation will be no different from other technological advances that humans have applied since the beginning of time – it will just be another tool to make humans more effective.
In this presentation, he will argue that the advantage of automation is not productivity (even though it will inevitably lead to changes in productivity) but the reduction, and possibly ultimately elimination, of human error. He will focus on the progression of automated vehicles and smart buildings as examples.
This discussion is for anyone interested in automation and the future of work in Australia.
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