Automation – Solving Citizen

Will the dream of self driving cars be replaced by flying cars?

Have you seen the new commercial where the car drives itself? It’s so exciting to see the future unfold. I remember watching George Jetson fly around in his car thinking “that’s what my future is going to look like”, but as time ticks on, my future seems to look more like the matrix (or some other post apocalyptic movie) than the cartoon of my childhood past.

While I don’t see myself becoming a car battery in the distant future, I do think that things won’t be the way I always thought they would. Now keep in mind I am presenting you with my wild speculation, but hear me out. Self driving cars have much anticipation and analysts think that within a decade our economy will be hit hard by self driving automation, but I’m not seeing it come from automobiles.

Already we’re seeing homeowners insurance being reduced because of automation and the LA Times has mentioned that self driving cars could flip the auto insurance industry on its head. But that’s not all automation is doing. It’s also giving us software to help on a global scale. A farmer can deploy a drone that will fly over an area miles wide, run the images through an algorithm, and tell the farmer what course of action he must take. Throw that software into a network of drones like they did in the 2017 Super Bowl halftime show, and the sky is the limit!

Amazon has already invested in infrastructure for an air delivery system, including airplanes and even a company to develop their drone delivery service. In addition their ambitious projects are helping to develop regulation that will likely evolve and reshape the aviation industry.

Right now the closest I can get to my dream of flying around the skies like George Jetson is to jump in a helicopter and fly around, but such a dream would be too costly for the average person to achieve. Although they are coming out with automated systems for Helicopters, insurance prices are too high for the technology to make an impact on the aviation industry to favor the consumer. Also, we are a long way off before drones can carry people off into the sunset, but that’s not stopping companies like Ehang from trying.

Now back to my wild speculation. Automated driving systems will make a big impact on our economy and our future, but they will only last a short time. It will be like that 5 minutes you had a pager, and then the cell phone came out. When the line between helicopter and drone disappears, and insurance prices fall (which is a major reason for high aviation costs),we will see prices in aviation fall. Finaly we will see insurance liabilities transfer from the driver or pilot to the automated network provider. We will see the flying car become a reality.

So. Is it a far-fetched childhood dream to have a flying car? No. I may even see it in my lifetime.

-Brandon

Defining the Truth

We hear many phrases today like “alternative facts” “bias media” or “false flag” and the more we hear that kind of noise the more it seems the truth is slipping from our grasp. The truth is tricky to define because it is literally different from person to person. So where do we look to define it? You compare it to a known standard.

History reveals that governments do a poor job of defining the truth for us. Laws are a great comfort zone for many people to define what is right and wrong, but just because something is legal doesn’t make it right. Oscar Schindler was somebody who frequently broke the law to do what we all know is right, but his society deemed wrong. That does not necessarily mean that laws are bad, there is a standard dictated by Natural Law. Natural Law was used by the founding fathers of the United States to shape the constitution. In fact Thomas Jefferson helped define the nonaggression principle.

The nonaggression principle or NAP was started by John Locke during the Age of Enlightenment. The NAP can essentially be defined as: don’t hurt people and don’t take their stuff. Even the United States constitution uses the NAP as a Standard to define the truth in their laws and morals.

Now let’s get the most value out of the truth and move from what we should do with it to what we can do with it. While running a business, there are many different universally excepted standards such as ISO or ASME.

Probably one of the most valuable tools you can use to analyze data and look at the facts is statistics. With statistics you use tools like Lean and Six Sigma. Six sigma was first used by Edward Deming. Collecting data and using facts to operate business quickly got him notice because it reshaped manufacturing. we moved from the industrial age to the information age.

Deming’s 14 points are used today in the most successful organizations around the world. The truth is a powerful tool that cannot be ignored when it is used properly. Whether you use it for politics or for business knowing the truth will separate you from your competitors and make you very successful in your ambitions. No matter what people think the truth is, we all know what the truth is we see it.

-Brandon

ISO

Teaching with automation in mind

If your old enough you might remember how different life was before the internet. It was practically a different world. Think of how many people were impacted negatively in the growing pains of that progress. If history teaches us anything it is that it repeats, and if we want to avoid becoming a victim of progress we must focus on increasing the skills of ourselves and the next generation.

Whatever the cause, the quality of our education is declining. This makes it hard for businesses to find workers with the skills that are required to step up to new rolls in developing and maintaining automation. On top of that we are in the brink of the Augmented Age which is throwing a learning curve to students while adapting to Artificial Intelligence.

This announcedmovement toward progress will inevitably hurt people in our economy by replacing some major roles humans play in the workforce today. Take driving for example. Elon Musk owner of Tesla Motors has announced that self driving cars can roll out in as early as two years! Think of how many people in our economy rely on this skill to acquire a living wage. Once this form of automation gains steam, driving could go the way of the horse and buggy. If driving is your best or only skill then you will quickly hit poverty.

In fact up to 80% of the roles humans have today could be replaced by automation. So what do we do? We work on continually building our skills. We move to the next step in everything we do. If you use Microsoft Excel, then you need to learn Visual Basics and write macros. If you operate or set up a machine for manufacturing, then you need to learn how to write the programs and read the G-code for that machine. Even if you have a WordPress account to make a website for you, you need to learn the HTML-code.

Not only must we do this for ourselves but we must have patience with the adaptation of our children and young coworkers who are stuck between old education and new. Parents and companies must step up and fill the gaps left behind in our education system and evolving technology by implementing training for performance. This will ensure that people with dedication will have access to a living wage. We need to focus on education which is still not jeopardized by the Augmented Age (yet). Focusing on fields that will add value to others like nursing, or teaching will make us masters over machines. I think we can all agree that it is far more desirable to work like the master over the machine.
-Brandon