Machines in Modern World - Essay Example

Introduction: Imagine a world without machines. You have to walk to the place you work and then walk back home. At home grind the flour so that you can make some bread. Then use the broom to clean the place. Find and fetch firewood so that you may cook and heat your home. In the morning, after cooking wash the rough clothes you wear by hand using a big cake of crude soap. At work you don't have time to think because all the work is done by hands using the simplest of tools. As a farmer you untie your cattle and till the land. Planting the seed is done manually and as the time for reaping comes you spend hours in the fields reaping the corn or wheat with a scythe. It is slow, frustrating and backbreaking work. Of course, the scenario given above did exist some time in the distant past. Maybe one has even read about it or seen such a life in some movie. But after experiencing all the conveniences of the machine filled it is difficult to imagine going back to a world without machines. This article is about machines and how they have enriched our lives both at the workplace and at home. It was also look at some of the disadvantages also. It will also take into account all the advantages and some disadvantages of using machines and in the end will show that after taking into account all the pros and the cons, the world is a better place to live in because of the abundance of machines that we see and use everyday. Man the machine: In effect the human body or the body of any creature that can move can be called a machine. The body is used to carry loads and perform tasks with hands and feet just like machines. Even animals use their body as machines. In fact, no machine quite as complex as the human body has ever been built. The human body has the circulatory system, the nervous system, the reproductive system, the skeletal system, the muscular system and the excretory system and no machine has even come close in complexity. If the body is such an efficient machine it could be asked as to why machines have been built. The answer would be that the body has its limitations. It cannot work continuously as machines can, it cannot carry the heavy loads that machines carry and it cannot repeatedly carry out error free operations as a machine can. But what it can do is, think creatively, and constantly look for ways to make life more convenient. This is the main difference between the human being when compared to other creatures.. With their limited thinking capacity, very few animals creatively use tools for more efficiency. The ant still carries its food on its back instead of using a trolley and tigers and lions still hunt using their feet and claws to kill instead of using a gun. But human beings have over the long period of its existence thought of and invented a wide array of machines that can perform tasks far more efficiently and quickly and will continue to do so. So machines are essentially a thing that is intended to make life more efficient and in some cases dangerous for us. To make the matter more clear a detailed look at the limitations of the human body and the advantages machines have over it would be appropriate. Limitations of the human body as a machine: a. Fatigue: No living organism can live or do work without getting energy. Energy is obtained from nutrients that are found in the food that is eaten by a person. A body needs adequate nutrients like fat, proteins, minerals, carbohydrates and water to perform tasks and to survive. A depletion of these nutrients will result in fatigue which in turn will affect his performance. A person can work without food relying on his internal reserves of energy for a few days. Some who are healthier can extend this period for a few more days. But ultimately there is a limit to what the body can take and there will come a time when it will refuse to function the way we want. Of course, energy is needed for machines to work too. But that will be discussed later in the article. b. Thirst: Thirst is taken up for special mention because the human body can survive at rest for an extended period of time, but without water it cannot survive for more than a week at the most. If you look at the energy needs of the human body with relevance to food and water, it is much more complex and varied than the energy needs of a machine. c. Thought process: All humans have the ability to think. The human mind has discovered machines that can think too. But along with thought, the mind is also capable of having emotions, something which is absent in machines. Emotions can be positive like love and be negative like lust, hatred and jealousy. This is a drawback as far as the body is considered to be a machine. d. Longevity: All living organisms that are born will have to die some day and this is the case with humans too. Science and technology have to a certain extent been able to prolong the life of the human body. But it still has not found ways to extend life more than the life span of a well built and well looked after machine. e. Society: One often hears the word that man is a social animal. Human beings are genetically programmed to live in a society and he or she experiences all the advantages and disadvantages of living in such a society. Machines do not care whether they socialize or not since they have no such programming built into them. In a sense, other living beings too have the same limitations given above and hence in this context can be considered to be in the same category as the human body machine. Out of the above mentioned limitations of the human body, machines too are similar in some respects. They too need energy to operate. But they have been built in such a way the a constant supply of energy and proper maintenance can make them operate for far longer periods than the body of a living organism. The advantages that machines have over human beings can be analyzed next. a. Productivity: The enhanced productivity of the machine over man was established beyond doubt during the industrial revolution. New inventions of the time like the spinning jenny increased production of cloth in a way no human beings could match. Even though crude by today's standards, they were marvels of high output at that time. Ever since the concept of mechanization was used to enhance production, improved machines with higher and higher productivity were discovered. It came to a point where the number of workers could be drastically cut along with a huge increase in productivity. Of course it was disadvantageous to the workers because they began to loose their jobs or were forced to work for lower wages. Inventing new machines, methods and systems to increase productivity still continues and with each improvement the necessity of human intervention is getting reduced day by day. This aspect is more important in the world of business because increased competition has forced organizations to look for ways of reducing costs through enhanced productivity. The full economical benefits of high productivity could be attributed to Henry Ford when he began to mass produce the famous Model T car. Henry Ford wanted to a car so cheap that every employee in his company would be able to afford one. "After installing themoving assembly lines in his factory in 1913, Ford became the world's biggest car manufacturer. By 1927, 15 million Model Ts had been manufactured." (Ford). b. Time efficiency: Along with increased productivity came the concept of time efficiency. This refers to a reduced time for manufacturing a product or performing a service. Machines made it possible to make hundreds of products in an hour whereas it would have taken human being days to complete. Take the case of the earth mover. A single hour of work done by an earth mover in moving tones of soil would take at least a week for a man to complete. The home PC can calculate figures much faster than it would have taken its owner to do it manually. Multi tasking: Humans can do multi tasking too, but not efficiently as a machine. Multi tasking means doing multiple jobs at the same time. It also means doing a variety of jobs by the same person or machine. An ideal example can be seen in a fully automatic washing machine found in many homes today. The machine, once programmed can soak, wash, rinse and dry the clothes without any human intervention. During this process the homemaker can look after other activities that require their attention. Imagine the time saved by washing the clothes in the machine. Otherwise the homemaker would have to personally wash the clothes by hand, rinse it and then hang them out for drying. Industrial and domestic robots are another example of multi tasking machines. "Before he can show off his shiny new project, Andrew Ng has to find it. Some days, it's down the hallway, fidgeting with doorknobs. Or it might be bent over the dishwasher in the artificial intelligence lab, unloading wine glasses." (A Multi Tasking Machine). c. Economies of Scale: This is another important factor where machines score over man in terms of costs saved. Suppose a man is paid $100 dollars an hour and he can manufacture a certain product at the rate of 50 numbers per hour, the labour cost incurred on the product will be $2 per product. If the same job can be done by a machine within 5 minutes but at a cost of $500 per hour. The production per hour in the case of the machine would 600 numbers. So the labor cost would come to less than $1 per product. This is a simple example of what is known as the economies of scale. Such economy of scale is beneficial in all areas of business. This is one of the major reasons why a lot of mergers and acquisitions by companies are taking place today. For example, a merger can enable the company to purchase raw material in much larger quantities at lower costs. d. Changing weather conditions: Machines like human beings do need protection in case of extreme variance of weather conditions. There are some areas like the tropics where the weather remains relatively hot and humid throughout the year. There are also places where temperatures can vary a lot. Areas near the hemispheres experience variations that may lie between 10 degrees Celsius and - 40 degrees Celsius. Humans would find it difficult to work constantly under such conditions. But technology has developed to such an extent that machines have been made that can withstand such conditions and operate efficiently. There are cameras that can operate in the cold regions of the Himalayas without any problem whereas a normal camera would not work. e. Labor problems: Labor problems are a major source of headache for many companies. Problems can occur due to demand increased pay, better working conditions, more financial and social security benefits etc. In some cases such demands would be genuine whereas in many cases it would be the result of a strong labor union. Whatever may be the scenario, companies prefer to avoid such conflicts because it would bring down their productivity and profits. Having a large labor force would invariable lead to a strong union which would ultimately spell trouble for the company. Most companies would prefer to go in for large scale mechanization over employing a large labor force even it means spending huge amounts of capital to acquire the machinery. Labor problems are caused by human emotions. It could be genuine emotions like increased security and better living conditions. It could also occur because of arrogance of having a strong union. Some industries also experience a higher turnover of labor. This again is a problem area for any company. Each new employee will have to be trained to work under environments that are unique for each company. Moreover a new employee will take time to achieve optimum productivity. Large scale attrition will cause training cost to go up and production levels to come down. It is obvious that no machine will demand for better wages or better living conditions because they do not have the capacity to think. f. Long term cost efficiency: In the short run, machines are more expensive than a human being. The cost of acquiring a machine would be much higher than the cost of hiring an equal number of workers that can produce the same output as the machine. But in the longer run, the machine will be more efficient in bringing down the cost of production. Since most companies are formed for long term operations, it would be preferable for them to invest in machinery than on humans. Even for performing short term operations, it would be preferable to hire the required machinery as it would work out cheaper than hiring labor to perform the task. If certain amount of landscaping has to be done for the garden of a house, it would work out to be cheaper both in terms of productivity and time saved to hire an earth mover than to hire laborers to do the job. Seven obvious advantages of machines over humans in terms of productive efficiency have been given here. There could no argument here as to the superiority of machines over human labor. Many more reasons as to why machines can replace labor can be given. Machines can produce goods with more accuracy and precision than any human being can. There are a number of areas where human beings cannot duplicate the work of machines. The computer chip the size of a matchbox, used in the personal computer has more than a hundred thousand transistors embedded in it. Such work can only be possible by a machine. With regard to safety also machines are preferable to human labor. In areas of armed human conflict, opposing armies purposefully plant land mines in the border areas of the country to deter the enemy. Millions of land mines have been planted in many areas of the world where such conflicts have taken place. Nowadays machines have been developed that can detect and destroy such mines with the help of sophisticated sensors. The use of such machinery will help to bring down or even eliminate injury and human causalities. The Dark side of machines: All that has been written about machinery in this paper are about the advantages of using machinery. But machinery can be used for destructive and violent purposes as well. The gun which is also a machine can be used to defend oneself or kill an innocent victim. All weapons of war are made for destructive purposes. There have been many instances of injury due to improper training of worker in handling machines. Badly maintained machines have caused accidents resulting in death or injury for its operators. The biggest concern using a lot of machinery is the harm they can do to the environment by producing pollutants like carbon dioxide. Conclusion: Machines have been made with a purpose, but do not have a life of its own. It is up to the user of the machine to see whether it is used for the benefit or harm for mankind. Used with good intentions, machines are an integral and useful part of our life. They can improve and enrich our lives in many ways. But used with anger, they can be destructive and wasteful. In concluding it must be stated that even though machines are in many ways more efficient than human beings, it is the human mind that have been able to conceive and eventually produce such a machine. The human body is a machine with spirit. "Man is so complicated a machine that it is impossible to get a clear idea of the machine beforehand and hence impossible to define it. For this reason, all the investigations have been vain, which the greatest philosophers have made priori, that is to to say, in so far as they use, as it were, the wings of the spirit. Thus it is only posteriori or by trying to disentangle the soul from the organs of the body, so to speak, that one can reach the highest probability concerning man's own nature, even though one can not discover with certainty what his nature is." (La Mettrie). Let humans and machines work together in building a better tomorrow. Work Cited A Multi Tasking Machine. Stanford Magazine. 2007. 10 Apr. 2008. . Ford, Henry. The History of the Automobile. About.com: Inventors. 2008. 10 Apr. 2008. . La Mettrie, Julien Offray de. Man a Machine, 1748. 31 Mar. 1995. 10 Apr. 2008. . Read More