I too have mixed feelings about automation and the growth of AI. I am the type that doesn’t use self-checkout at stores because I want to support the human cashiers.
I would like to know who and where the robots/automatons for any type of production line venture are being created and built. That too may be an industry that needs to come…
I too have mixed feelings about automation and the growth of AI. I am the type that doesn’t use self-checkout at stores because I want to support the human cashiers.
I would like to know who and where the robots/automatons for any type of production line venture are being created and built. That too may be an industry that needs to come back to US shores.
In the past the US companies have moved off-shore and the companies were happy to do that for two big reasons - cheaper labor and to escape environmental regulations - giving us cheap products and a poisoned world. If we bring industries back to the US we have a lot of work to do on the Environmental Protection side of this equation.
I worked in hospital labs for over 40 years. When I started, the first laboratory automation, the Coulter Counter (which automatically counted and sized red cells and white cells) was being used. We had to manually count platelets under a microscope with a "clicker". Soon, a platelet counting machine came into use, and automated cell differentiation machines.
I can't possibly convey to the general public what these advances meant, even most doctors don't realize as they sometimes would come down to the lab. I believe this 100%: modern medicine would NOT exist without automation! A CBC (Complete Blood Count) in the mid 70s took hours. Now, about 60 seconds. I could expound upon the myriad automated machines and how they give meaningful results almost in real time; indeed, at our lab, blood test results were delivered within 30 minutes FROM TIME OF DRAW such that clot busting drugs could be administered to stroke victims within the 60 minute window. And that included an ER person literally jogging about two blocks in the huge complex with specimen in hand.
In an aside, medical laboratory technologists (now called Medical Laboratory Scientists) are a dying breed--HIV scared a lot of them away in the 80s. More opportunities for females came in the areas of physicians, and nursing paid much, much higher wages. Some went into forensics as CSI made it look so appealing (and the lab is NOTHING like CSI to the surprise and remorse of some student interns that I taught!) Radiology advances stole a number of potential employees away. The lab worker shortage is unknown to anyone except labs. This is a very serious issue which at some point will need to be addressed. Medical labs have automated to the point where it is doubtful more automation can be done, but without the current automation.......I can't even imagine how many millions more would have died during the worst of COVID.
Miselle thank you for telling your story and bringing to light the changes in your field and the issue of a shortage in lab workers. I learned something new today from you.
Thank you, Karen. This was a very serious problem with COVID. There is a lab test called the "D-DIMER" which in many medium sized hospitals might run about 5-10 a day. I had just retired right before COVID, but my friends told me our large complex which normally ran about 50 or so a day now was running about 100/shift. And the results were so out of range that our automation couldn't handle it, techs had to make manual dilutions to run. (That in itself is problematic as machinery will almost always replicate better than individual techs, even the same tech at different times. Be assured though that medical labs are highly regulated and we were all tested on all aspects of our job, at very least monthly, usually even more frequently!)
Medical lab work is fascinating to any who have knowledge of healthcare. Any current physicians, nurses, or others reading this: might want to call down to your lab and ask if you can have a tour. Many hospital labs offer tours during mid April when Medical Laboratory Week occurs. And if by chance you are a CEO/upper admin in a hospital and you have not visited your lab, shame on you. Do it today.
Automation and technology in general are fantastically powerful kit of tools, one that keenly fascinated me from the age of three or four. We reap benefits our forebears could not have dreamed of by it's means. But I think the profit motive alone will not insure that it is always used to society's benefit. It can be used to control and destroy as well as heal and it can result in social and environmental changes I think we would be wise to try to anticipate and guide best we can. To enjoy democracy, we have to keep the immense power of applied science from being dominantly controlled by too few hands.
China uses it to control.......maybe not destroy yet. Does automation destroy creativity? The intersection between freedom of expression and technology is waiting for some stop lights.
Great example of the importance of automation. States with all this new tech industry should spend some of the $$$ on the education of their populace - duh!
Thank You Miselle. All these decades in nursing (and even running a few samples to the lab) I never got the full picture before. Maybe time for a hospital medical laboratory TV drama.
Karen, do you also seek out full service gas stations, instead of pumping your own gas? My point being that losing jobs like gas station attendant and check out cashier to automation is not a bad thing. Those attendants and cashiers will likely find better jobs. So not to worry. :)
I do miss a full service gas station. The attendant filled the tank, washed the windshield, checked the oil all the while exchanging pleasantries and news about the going’s in our community. Does that give you an idea of my vintage? ;)
It may be true that attendants and cashiers will find a better job. My question is what constitutes a better job? Until we as a society establish a level playing field for employees and embrace Environmental Protection the “better” part is yet undefined.
I’ll bet I’m older than you. I remember when gas was 30 cents a gallon :) I had a favorite gas station attendant, too, he was great at doing all the stuff you list. As for automation and jobs…55 years ago I worked on a truck farm. Right about this time of year, we’d start picking potatoes. A tractor pulled the harvester, which dug into the row as the tractor drove, and scooped up potatoes, vines, rocks, weeds etc onto a chain conveyor. A bunch of us stood on either side of the conveyor as the chain wizzed by, and picked out everything but the potatoes, which dropped into bushel baskets at the end of the conveyor. Every once in a while somebody would get injured, a cut, or a broken finger. And our backs and legs ached badly by the end of the day. Yesterday on my Instagram, a small farm I follow posted a Reel of their new automated potato harvester in action. No people picking weeds or rocks, they are replaced by automated arms. That’s progress. I would never go back to picking rocks and weeds.
No reason to go back, nor can we as a practical matter. But we are charting our life, not watching a movie, so looking ahead is in order. Imagining the future is only an educated guess and life is full of surprises. Yet cautiously and observantly, identifying reliable patterns from the past, we can make better than random guesses about the future.
New technologies are rooted in this process, and so too "wisdom", individual and national requires it. So far projections of waste gas induced global heating have proved to be a pretty good map, mostly underestimating the pace of the changes. It seems to me we need to be examining all supportable possibilities in order to influence best outcomes.
I recall hearing over 50 years ago the number of patchcord telephone operators that would be needed to operate the US telephone network as it then existed, and it was absurdly huge. Huge racks of clattering electromechanical relays had taken over that function, since replaced by microprocessors. That's a very good thing. There is no incentive to go back. Performing that function by hand would require an army of employees, but doing useless work, and doing it more slowly and less accurately.
That said, digital technologies are developing at an accelerating pace. Replacing far more skilled job categories will surely be possible. Should we just take on faith that worthwhile jobs will emerge from unprecedented developments? Who gets to decide how society will adapt? Just entrusting ultra-wealthy "Job Creators" to create meaningful (or any) jobs for employees that they would rather shed has not worked very well for all of the people so far, and it is not unthinkable that future circumstances may tend to make this worse. Fortune favors the prepared mind.
I 'm sure it is more complex than I know, but it seems to me that by moving US manufacturing to China lawmakers and capital knowingly helped despotic China to become a world security threat in terms of dependencies and financial clout. Like "road rage", greed blinds the brain to compassion, wisdom, and even national interest, yet anything for a profit has been the mantra of plutocratically sponsored Republicans since Reagan. Trump epitomizes how soul-destroying greed can become, and yet he remains their champion.
I too have mixed feelings about automation and the growth of AI. I am the type that doesn’t use self-checkout at stores because I want to support the human cashiers.
I would like to know who and where the robots/automatons for any type of production line venture are being created and built. That too may be an industry that needs to come back to US shores.
In the past the US companies have moved off-shore and the companies were happy to do that for two big reasons - cheaper labor and to escape environmental regulations - giving us cheap products and a poisoned world. If we bring industries back to the US we have a lot of work to do on the Environmental Protection side of this equation.
I worked in hospital labs for over 40 years. When I started, the first laboratory automation, the Coulter Counter (which automatically counted and sized red cells and white cells) was being used. We had to manually count platelets under a microscope with a "clicker". Soon, a platelet counting machine came into use, and automated cell differentiation machines.
I can't possibly convey to the general public what these advances meant, even most doctors don't realize as they sometimes would come down to the lab. I believe this 100%: modern medicine would NOT exist without automation! A CBC (Complete Blood Count) in the mid 70s took hours. Now, about 60 seconds. I could expound upon the myriad automated machines and how they give meaningful results almost in real time; indeed, at our lab, blood test results were delivered within 30 minutes FROM TIME OF DRAW such that clot busting drugs could be administered to stroke victims within the 60 minute window. And that included an ER person literally jogging about two blocks in the huge complex with specimen in hand.
In an aside, medical laboratory technologists (now called Medical Laboratory Scientists) are a dying breed--HIV scared a lot of them away in the 80s. More opportunities for females came in the areas of physicians, and nursing paid much, much higher wages. Some went into forensics as CSI made it look so appealing (and the lab is NOTHING like CSI to the surprise and remorse of some student interns that I taught!) Radiology advances stole a number of potential employees away. The lab worker shortage is unknown to anyone except labs. This is a very serious issue which at some point will need to be addressed. Medical labs have automated to the point where it is doubtful more automation can be done, but without the current automation.......I can't even imagine how many millions more would have died during the worst of COVID.
Miselle thank you for telling your story and bringing to light the changes in your field and the issue of a shortage in lab workers. I learned something new today from you.
Thank you, Karen. This was a very serious problem with COVID. There is a lab test called the "D-DIMER" which in many medium sized hospitals might run about 5-10 a day. I had just retired right before COVID, but my friends told me our large complex which normally ran about 50 or so a day now was running about 100/shift. And the results were so out of range that our automation couldn't handle it, techs had to make manual dilutions to run. (That in itself is problematic as machinery will almost always replicate better than individual techs, even the same tech at different times. Be assured though that medical labs are highly regulated and we were all tested on all aspects of our job, at very least monthly, usually even more frequently!)
Medical lab work is fascinating to any who have knowledge of healthcare. Any current physicians, nurses, or others reading this: might want to call down to your lab and ask if you can have a tour. Many hospital labs offer tours during mid April when Medical Laboratory Week occurs. And if by chance you are a CEO/upper admin in a hospital and you have not visited your lab, shame on you. Do it today.
😲
Automation and technology in general are fantastically powerful kit of tools, one that keenly fascinated me from the age of three or four. We reap benefits our forebears could not have dreamed of by it's means. But I think the profit motive alone will not insure that it is always used to society's benefit. It can be used to control and destroy as well as heal and it can result in social and environmental changes I think we would be wise to try to anticipate and guide best we can. To enjoy democracy, we have to keep the immense power of applied science from being dominantly controlled by too few hands.
China uses it to control.......maybe not destroy yet. Does automation destroy creativity? The intersection between freedom of expression and technology is waiting for some stop lights.
Yes, which means we must elect wise leaders
“Because power corrupts, society’s demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.” – John Adams
Great example of the importance of automation. States with all this new tech industry should spend some of the $$$ on the education of their populace - duh!
Thank You Miselle. All these decades in nursing (and even running a few samples to the lab) I never got the full picture before. Maybe time for a hospital medical laboratory TV drama.
Thank you for this view into the real world of the lab.
Karen, do you also seek out full service gas stations, instead of pumping your own gas? My point being that losing jobs like gas station attendant and check out cashier to automation is not a bad thing. Those attendants and cashiers will likely find better jobs. So not to worry. :)
I do miss a full service gas station. The attendant filled the tank, washed the windshield, checked the oil all the while exchanging pleasantries and news about the going’s in our community. Does that give you an idea of my vintage? ;)
It may be true that attendants and cashiers will find a better job. My question is what constitutes a better job? Until we as a society establish a level playing field for employees and embrace Environmental Protection the “better” part is yet undefined.
I’ll bet I’m older than you. I remember when gas was 30 cents a gallon :) I had a favorite gas station attendant, too, he was great at doing all the stuff you list. As for automation and jobs…55 years ago I worked on a truck farm. Right about this time of year, we’d start picking potatoes. A tractor pulled the harvester, which dug into the row as the tractor drove, and scooped up potatoes, vines, rocks, weeds etc onto a chain conveyor. A bunch of us stood on either side of the conveyor as the chain wizzed by, and picked out everything but the potatoes, which dropped into bushel baskets at the end of the conveyor. Every once in a while somebody would get injured, a cut, or a broken finger. And our backs and legs ached badly by the end of the day. Yesterday on my Instagram, a small farm I follow posted a Reel of their new automated potato harvester in action. No people picking weeds or rocks, they are replaced by automated arms. That’s progress. I would never go back to picking rocks and weeds.
No reason to go back, nor can we as a practical matter. But we are charting our life, not watching a movie, so looking ahead is in order. Imagining the future is only an educated guess and life is full of surprises. Yet cautiously and observantly, identifying reliable patterns from the past, we can make better than random guesses about the future.
New technologies are rooted in this process, and so too "wisdom", individual and national requires it. So far projections of waste gas induced global heating have proved to be a pretty good map, mostly underestimating the pace of the changes. It seems to me we need to be examining all supportable possibilities in order to influence best outcomes.
Totally.
I recall hearing over 50 years ago the number of patchcord telephone operators that would be needed to operate the US telephone network as it then existed, and it was absurdly huge. Huge racks of clattering electromechanical relays had taken over that function, since replaced by microprocessors. That's a very good thing. There is no incentive to go back. Performing that function by hand would require an army of employees, but doing useless work, and doing it more slowly and less accurately.
That said, digital technologies are developing at an accelerating pace. Replacing far more skilled job categories will surely be possible. Should we just take on faith that worthwhile jobs will emerge from unprecedented developments? Who gets to decide how society will adapt? Just entrusting ultra-wealthy "Job Creators" to create meaningful (or any) jobs for employees that they would rather shed has not worked very well for all of the people so far, and it is not unthinkable that future circumstances may tend to make this worse. Fortune favors the prepared mind.
Wish we had been a little more prepared for the last 6 years.
I 'm sure it is more complex than I know, but it seems to me that by moving US manufacturing to China lawmakers and capital knowingly helped despotic China to become a world security threat in terms of dependencies and financial clout. Like "road rage", greed blinds the brain to compassion, wisdom, and even national interest, yet anything for a profit has been the mantra of plutocratically sponsored Republicans since Reagan. Trump epitomizes how soul-destroying greed can become, and yet he remains their champion.
Barcodes took over many jobs. But we like them.