Automation

Automation is the use of computers to control industrial machinery, replacing human operators. It is a step beyond mechanization, where human operators are provided with machinery to help them in their jobs. The most tangible part of automation can be said to be industrial robotics.

By the middle of the 20th century, automation had existed for many years on a small scale, using mechanical devices to automate the production of simply shaped items. However the concept only became truly practical with the addition of the computer, whose flexibility allowed it to drive almost any sort of task. Computers with the required combination of power, price, and size first started to appear in the 1960s, and since then have taken over the vast majority of simple assembly line tasks (some food production/inspection being a notable exception).

Social issues of automation

When automation was first being introduced, it caused widespread fear. It was thought that the displacement of human workers by computerized systems would lead to unemployment (this also happened with mechanization, centuries earlier). In fact the opposite was true, the freeing up of the labor force allowed more people to enter information jobs, which are typically higher paying. One odd side effect of this shift is that "unskilled labor" now pays very well in most industrialized nations, because fewer people are available to fill such jobs.