I've been thinking about having robotic miners for about 20 years, but one thing I think about is the loss of high-paying mining jobs to the local economies. Even in emerging countries mining pays many benefits. On the other hand, labor is very expensive, and most of the machines could easily be converted to automatic operation. Plus robots don't have a union, never need a smoke or piss break, or steal gold when they are supposed to be working. Think of the advances in sensors and computers within just the last 10 years. Raw resources, which we all require, could be had far cheaper than they are today. Likewise, exploration could be done by robots, especially using a UAV with sensors built in, like the Mars project I read about recently. Then, robots could follow up by collecting samples from targets located by the UAV and analyze them on the spot. This would eliminate bias, and reduce other errors and salting as well. We already use the software we need, and most of the hardware is off-the-shelf stuff.

I would welcome robotics in mining, but I have a job no matter what.

-cp-