Welcome to the 44th edition of Safe For Work. This is a fun one…you get to meet Henry, the self driving water truck working in mining; listen to a fascinating discussion of an AI breakthrough in material science where the smartest scientists get the best results; science fiction inspired by a love for high tension power lines and love itself; and close with a new short film that asks the question, ‘What if the aliens we meet one day are low tech?’

I am writing to you from normally sunny Valencia, Spain. After last week’s flooding disaster, engineering is top of mind. How are we going to rebuild, rewire the metro, and, importantly, what hydrological engineering needs to be done to keep villages safe. The city did it after the floods in 1957 magnificently.

Table of Contents

• Safety News

• Podcast

• Science fiction story

• SFW Films new release

In Safety News

• Meet ‘Henry,’ the autonomous water cart working in the dust of Western Australia: Driverless trucks in mining operations.

• Despite its impressive output, generative AI doesn’t have a coherent understanding of the world.

• Safety updates at the largest construction site in the world

Safe For Work Podcast

Episode 5 discusses an amazing new study exploring the impact of AI on invention and materials discovery.

Science Fiction Short Story

To Work or Not to Work

Matt Cantor

Rolling hills, grass, off the side of the highway-- follow the lines, follow the lines, hiking along, green and blue and shining sun-- rolling hills, rolling in the grass under the lines in the afternoon, you and I, maybe five miles from the roar of traffic-- rolling in the grass, just to roll in it. Tangled-- coiled. Nothing between us. Laughing.

When was the last time we just laughed?

This was before either of us had decided to become engineers. This was why both of us decided to become engineers-- or me, at least, it was why I decided. I don’t want to speak for you.

I want to do everything for you. I would do anything for you. Even now, still.

I told Howard I was willing to pull as many strings as I had to for him to give us this final assignment together. He laughed-- he thought I was making a joke-- a pun. He thought I was making a pretty good pun-- he laughed, more than just a chuckle. He said he would make it work.

I like the idea that it was a joke that I didn’t even mean to make that convinced him. The sort of joke you always would have playfully reached out and pushed your fingertips against my cheek for, rolling your eyes. The sort of joke you would have always forgiven.

If I’d known you’d been forgiving my terrible puns, I wouldn’t have kept making them. I wouldn’t have used it all up.

You aren’t supposed to follow high-tension powerlines. It’s not safe, for starters-- not safe for all the same reasons that it’s not safe to go traipsing out into the wilderness anywhere else, for starters-- there might be a bear, or a bad rainstorm, or some branches might fall, or whatever, or whatever-- and it’s private property, it’s company property, they might be liable if something happens to you. It’s trespassing, that’s what it is. There might be an accident-- one of the wires might come loose or snap. You might get electrocuted-- and die. You might get left as just a charred, black, mass on the ground, in the grass. Two people might get charred black together, rolling around in the grass beneath the high-tension wires. There are all sorts of signs put up, telling you not to do it.

But of course people do it anyways. Just out of curiosity, one day, maybe they pull over by the side of the highway and take a few steps into the green until they reach the first fence and turn back. Maybe they plan for it. Maybe they pack their backpacks nice and full, and they set out, and they hop the first fence, and then the second, and then on and on, along the rolling hills, following the lines overhead on their great eiffel towers-- on and on and on until finally even they get tired or they finally reach the power-plant, wherever that is. Maybe they will stop somewhere along the way and just roll in the grass.

Maybe, while they’re walking back, they’ll say something to each other, this way or that way, back and forth between them. One or the other of them will say that they wish that every day could be like this day-- and the other of them, or the one, will say that it could be, couldn’t it? Every day could be this much of an adventure. Every day could be so close-- nothing between them. Do you remember?

It hadn’t occurred to me that doing this job would mean riding out to the site together. I’d known it, of course-- obviously, I’d known it, because it was obvious. But it hadn’t occurred to me, if that difference means anything to you. If anything about anything means anything to you anymore-- should I sit up in the front seat with Howard and you sit in the back, or you sit up in the front with Howard and I sit in the back-- which would you like? It makes no difference to you-- it doesn’t mean anything, anymore, who sits where, me over here, you over there.

“Maybe we can both sit in the back together,” I tell you. “Give Howard a little peace and quiet for the drive.”

“You can sit up front,” you tell me. “I know you always get carsick when you sit in the back.”

They really are such beautiful things, high-tension power-lines. I won’t tell people to go walking along them on a sunny afternoon with someone you love. I’m not telling people to do that. It would be irresponsible of me as an electrical engineer to tell people to do that, and I hope that people won’t. But I do hope that people at least go look at them, while they can. Before we’ve finished taking them all down. There are plenty of them-- miles and miles and miles, all across the country. People have time, still.

There are hiking groups, actually, that make treks together along the lines. It’s how people are-- they see the rolling green hills, the rolling grass, they see the lines on their towers above, snaking off into the forever distance, and they simply must follow. It’s how we are.

Up you go in the cherry-picker-- up and up and up until you reach the platform and clip yourself in. Down comes the arm. Howard pulls backwards, carefully, along the rolling hills-- it’s an amazing thing, really, that these machines are able to move in this space. Even as he’s rolling backwards, even as I’m getting ready for my turn to go up, I see your hair, spilling from the sides of your hard-hat like a pot, boiling over-- caught in the wind, caught in my eyes-- your hair, and the collars of your shirt, blowing and blowing.

They are beautiful, high-tension power-lines-- beautiful and beautiful. But they aren’t perfect. They have problems. Everything up in the world has problems. Storms come-- lines get blown down, ripped from the towers. Even towers get blown down, blown all the way over. Lightning strikes happen. Snow happens. Animals happen, they stand on the lines and scratch them or defecate on them, or even cause shorts. Rust happens. Earthquakes happen-- in some places, they happen. Wildfires happen-- in some places-- in more and more places.

And people, they come out and fix the lines. You and I, we come out and fix the lines-- and fix them and fix them and fix them. We fix what we can fix. And then we go back. We don’t roll around in the grass, or have picnics-- do you remember, when we would have picnics?

I remember.

Sometimes, it hurts to remember.

It’s better just to bury everything.

It’s better just to bury everything. A few feet under the soil, safe from the storms and the rains and the on and on and on and on.

It used to be, there were lots of reasons people couldn’t do that-- lots of things that made it less than practical.

Lots of problems that have been solved, now.

Sometimes, you can’t solve anything at all.

It’s better to just bury everything.

The cherry-picker takes me up and up and up, until I reach the little platform. I step on. I clip to the tower, the line between my belt and the rung-- give it one, two, tugs, tight-- safe. Thumbs-up down to Howard, below. He lowers the cherry-picker.

Here we are. Taking it all down-- or the wires, at least. Someone else will come by later, for the towers. That’s proper demolition. But this, this is us. You and me. Here we are.

Five-hundred feet, you and me, me and you-- an abyss, between us. The power-line, between us. In a cartoon movie, your or me might go jumping up onto it and running across all tippy-balance-like to the other-- in a cartoon movie about two different people. Instead, we just stare. You are a tiny dot in a yellow hard-hat, and an orange safety-vest, and I can still catch your dark brown hair blowing, blowing, out to the side-- the wind so high up is intense.

We stare at each other, this way or that way, back and forth between us. One or the other of us looks away first-- gets to work first.

Every day could be like this, couldn’t it?

I put my bare hand on the wire. Nothing happens. There’s no power running through it. Hasn’t been, for days. The new buried system is up-- or down-- and doing just fine. All of this is just sculpture, now. But I imagine my own self as voltage, running down the line to you-- two different people.

I carefully start to unhook my end. You carefully start unhook yours. Both of us pause and look down at Howard to make sure he’s safely out of the way. He is-- he’s out of the cherry picker, rolling in the grass. He’s fine. Both of us look at each other, again-- one last time. I cannot see your face, but I can feel your eyes-- a little tingle of electricity, like when the wires were live. I blink-- or you blink-- and together, we--

Let.

Go.

High-tension power-lines are heavy. They make a big rumbling thump, when they hit the dirt, far below; they shake the Earth. You and me, we used to shake the Earth-- do you remember?

We stare, back and forth, across our towers, waiting for Howard to get down one or the other of us with the cherry-picker.

There is nothing between us.

SFW Films presents: Drift

Imagine a world where humanity encounters aliens unlike anything we've ever imagined – not advanced beings with futuristic tech, but a society of aliens who live without any technology at all. What would happen if humans, with our high-tech gadgets, space travel, and artificial intelligence, met an alien civilization that values nature, simplicity, and perhaps even telepathic or spiritual connection over machinery and devices?

Adapted from the short story in issue 34.

See you next week as we explore the role of science fiction in shaping future safety technology.

Stay safe.