Hmmmmm, good thing too, I wouldn't really want a "thing" that anticipates my needs making decisions I might not like afterwards.

I would, however, like to see AI adapted to a 'phone answering service where the disembodied voice of the "person" at the other end actually does cater for my question when I ask a specific one instead of suggesting a number of option that I cannot relate to for my wants.

If a 'phone answering service data bank was expanded large enough it would make a dull day extremely interesting indeed, especially for those people who like to indulge in smutty questions to female 'phone service people....LOL, what a ball you could have with the huge and vast array of topics you could dream up.....and nobody at the other end gets offended with your questions.

What this has to do with operators and machinists I don't know, but it's apparent that when you start out in the trade you make the decision to hit the button or tell someone else to hit it when you say the word.

Perhaps a computer with a big data file of green for GO conditions "could" give you the nod to go for it and hit the green button.

It would be simple in that case, no need for a machinist who might have a hangover from the weekend party and overlooks that the stops were not set and crashed the head into the chuck.....with AI the machine sensors would detect an anomaly and block your attempt to go green, provided you gave the AI interpreter.....based up in the cloud..... enough info to make the right decision.

To get any form or reliability you would need to have a set up that employed a sensor bank for every position of a tool travel or machine component based on it's shape and form so that collision could not happen under any circumstances no matter how you wanted to move the tooling.

Malfunctions can happen and you would need a back up for your back up system ad finitum just to be safe, but what price is too high for a system without a Human interface.....we are talking about a watcher to watch the watcher actually, and how intelligent does an artificial intelligence have to be just to function.

I think AI needs to be specific for a particular application and not broad based for every occasion......a Dung Beetle does not need a degree in quantum physics just to get from the nest site to a pile of Bovine excrement and bring some goodies home, it's already endowed with enough intelligence to do the task and decide if the food is good enough to eat......the fact that the food may be otherwise tasty is probably beyond the scope of the beetle's knowledge of food.....even sh!t can look good and taste good if you are a dung beetle.
Ian.