The role of engineers within WA’s mining industry is set to change drastically over the coming years, as AI technologies complete some of the more mundane and tedious tasks that tend to slow down human production. 

Director of the WA Data Science Innovation Hub Alex Jenkins believes AI’s impact will be huge.

“There’s going to be an incredible amount of artificial intelligence and data science that can be used in the mining and engineering sectors to drive growth.”

“It will increase efficiency and automate some of the tasks that currently are done by humans.”

He says AI technology is already being used in various ways to better optimise engineering within the mining industry. 

“Western Australia is an enormous place and these techniques can help us find really good spots to explore for minerals,” he says.

Mr Jenkins says AI is already being used in predictive maintenance. 

“So that’s how we modify the maintenance regimes of our big trucks and drills to ensure that they don’t break down and that they operate for as long as possible.”

And yet, he says it is the way AI will be used by engineers in the mining industry across the different departments within the supply chain that will have the biggest effect on the industry.

“That’s when we look at all of the different parts of a mining operation: mining, processing, shipping, logistics, transport, and we try and optimise them in a holistic manner.” 

Goldman Sachs released a report this year predicting that 300-million jobs around the world could be made redundant by AI, with many new ones being created as a result.

Third-year UWA engineering student Robert White says despite the shifting times, no one he knows in engineering is worried about the potential harm of AI. 

“I’m pretty sure that engineering is going to be pretty safe,” he says. 

“I’ve definitely heard of other people studying different degrees at university who are more worried than engineers are.”

He says he would only be concerned for the sake of engineering if AI was to progress to the point where it was “almost humanlike”.

“It will actually make jobs easier,” Mr White says. 

“A lot of the simpler or more tedious jobs will be eliminated. And I don’t think that will have a massive effect on jobs.”

Mr Jenkins believes AI will not replace engineering jobs in the short term. 

He says artificial intelligence will simply change how these jobs are done, cutting out the more tedious and less human-dependent parts. 

“It’s really making programmers, geologists and engineers more effective and more productive in their current roles.”

Mr White says the past is a good indication of the future. 

“I think that the innovation-side of human development will always rely on engineers,” he says. 

Mr Jenkins says the job is going to change but not for the worst. 

“There’s going to be more jobs in this space than we can possibly fill in WA, so it’s important that we have the talent entering the workforce to drive our economy into the future.”