🦺 The Age of Automation

Welcome to the 30th edition of Safe For Work. In this edition we start our exploration of robotics and automation from Asteroid 4094KZ. Thanks to guest author Clare Zicari for this poignant view of the future of work.

You´ll also find a new short film, Cherry Blossoms, adapted from issue 17. At the bottom, 3 safety news stories worth reading.

Work Song

“It’s a matter of matter and antimatter, you know? Of how much you have to make before things start to disappear. Before they – boosh –” Caelan stars his hands apart in front of his face. “- explode, and there’s not a thing you can do about it.”

The view of the planet from asteroid 4094KZ is dark at this point in the orbit. The LEO scaffolding supporting the bulk of the ship Persistence blocks out most of the Sun, and only the far edges of the Earth are visible behind the interlocking arms of the docking station. Metal blue tinted purple in the outer atmosphere, the penumbra a little dimmer now than it was last sunset, a little brighter now than it will be when it rises again.

Not that Caelan can tell this in any way that matters, but he knows the Sun is dying just like he knows he won’t be around to see the lights of Alpha Centauri when the Persistence finally gets there in 50-some-odd years. Too old, he told me once when he first joined the mining team on KZ, knowing I couldn’t object to the truth of it. Wouldn’t make it. And that, somehow, is what matters most.

He tells me it’s beautiful, in a sad kind of way: knowing that when this ship he’s helped to build is finally ready to save his species, he’ll be left behind to see them off and watch them go. And now that all manual work has ceased on KZ and the other inter-orbit mining sites, that won’t be too much longer.

“Status check for the hull team, Tac.”

“The hull team has nearly completed installation of life support systems and main communications. Hull team C is running final diagnostics now; Systems team B will launch primary computers and establish communication channels with ground base to begin transportation of Persistence crewmembers.”

“Huh,” Caelan says, kicking a piece of rock, sending it tumbling, watching it go on and on and on. “That’s… that’s ahead of schedule, isn’t it? Crew wasn’t supposed to be ready for another month at least.”

“That’s correct. Efficiency of the assembly team has increased in recent days. The timeline for completion has been expedited to account for the change. The Persistence is estimated to be ready for departure in ten days, five hours, and thirteen minutes.”

“When did that happen?” Caelan’s voice is level, but there’s an urgency to his tone that I know he doesn’t want me to hear. Before I can answer, however: “No, no. It doesn’t matter. That’s good. Really good. They’ll want to leave soon, sure. Once everything’s settled. I’ll go back down and everyone else will go up. That’s how it should be. That’s how it was designed. That was always the plan.”

“Yes. The Persistence is optimized to take nine local hours to board all crew and prepare all stations for departure. All automated systems are calibrated for the greatest level of efficiency.”

“Efficiency, sure.”

He leans back to sit down on an outcrop, slowly, like he’ll drift away despite his suit’s internal gravity that keeps him rooted here. He knocks a steady beat with his fist into the rock beneath him. He hardly seems aware he’s doing it.

“You should return to the transport shuttle soon. It will be returning to Earth now that operations are complete here. Any remaining services for the Persistence will be monitored by the computers once they’re active.”

“What do they sound like?” he says quietly. “The drones. The things building everything over there. The things I’ve been keeping tabs on. The things that are doing such a wonderful job keeping things ahead of schedule. What does efficiency sound like?”

“I’m sorry, Caelan. I’m not quite sure what you’re asking. But the drones wouldn’t sound like anything interesting to you. Nothing intelligible, certainly.”

“Can you just let me hear?”

I can, and though I find no reason why he should listen to them, a jumble of code, commands, corrections through the wires, I find no reason why he shouldn’t either. I open the channel in his earpiece.

We listen for a while, together, to the drones clicking in unison from their flight around the Persistence. Caelan watches them from his quiet place on the empty asteroid, a swarm of dark points like a shield surrounding the ship. The distant light of the waning sun reflects off their edges, making them glow as the earth rotates beneath them.

“They’re singing,” Caelan says after a time. “It’s a work song.” And he laughs at that. For a long time, he only laughs, the sound contained to his helmet, and to me, and to the synchronized voices of the assembly teams putting the final touches on the next iteration of humanity.

In the growing dark, there’s nowhere else for the sound to go but down.

In Safety News

• Contestants on Mr. Beast´s new Squid Games-like reality show complain of safety issues.

• There will be new safety board hearings investigating the ongoing concerns with Boeing. We wrote about some of these challenges and highlighted some solutions from Japan Airlines in issue 5.

• Some of those elements of building a safety culture at Japan Airlines are on display in this piece celebrating Australian miner Yancoal.

See you next week as we continue to explore robotics and automation, inspired by Battlestar Gallactica. Stay safe.