About all that is holding up similarly automated subway trains in the United States is approval from the union. Soviet Russia claims she already has computer-run subways and even ships. The latter application took place on the oil tanker Engineer Pustoshkin plying the Caspian Sea. The main complaint of the director of this research work, P. Strumpe, is that ships are not yet designed for computer control and will change for the better when their designers realize the error of their ways.
Hughes Aircraft Company
Mobot Mark II, carrying a Geiger counter in its “hands,” demonstrates how it can substitute for men in dangerously radiated areas.
Minneapolis-Honeywell in this country is working toward the complete automation of buildings, pointing out that they are as much machines as structures. A 33-story skyscraper in Houston will use a central computer to check 400 points automatically and continuously. Temperature and humidity will be monitored, as well as doors and windows. Presence of smoke and fire will be automatically detected, and all mechanical equipment will be monitored and controlled. Equipped with cost figures, the central computer will literally “run” the building for optimum efficiency and economy. Harvard University has a central control for seventy-six campus buildings, and in Denver work is being done toward a central control for a number of large buildings. It is fitting that automation of buildings be carried on, since historically it was in the home that self-control of machines was pioneered with automatic control of furnaces with thermostats.
Robodyne Division, U.S. Industries, Inc.
TransfeRobot assembly-line worker installs clockwork parts with speed and precision.
In this country our traffic is crying for some kind of control, and New York is already using punched-card programming to control part of the city’s traffic. The Federal administration is studying a bold proposal from RCA, Bendix, General Motors, and Westinghouse for an automatically controlled highway. The reason? Traffic is getting to be too much for the human brain to deal with. A better one has to be found, and the computer is applying for the job.
The coming of automation has been likened to a tidal wave. It is useless to shovel against it, and the job would seem to be to find suitable life preservers to keep us afloat as it sweeps in over the world. One approach is that of a nonprofit foundation to study the impact of automation on workers. This group, a joint United States Industries, Inc., and International Association of Machinists organization, has already come up with a scheme for collecting “dues” from the machines, in annual amounts of from $25 to $1,000, depending on the work output of the machine.
A key project of the foundation is a study of effective retraining of workers to fit them for jobs in the new, computerized factory. Such studies may well have to be extended from the assembly line to the white-collar worker and executive as well. The computer can wear many different kinds of hats!