june 20 2013151 intro machines can do a lot of things that humans used to do you can put your debit card into an atm and watch it spit out money you dont have to talk to a cashier at the grocery store anymore if you use the selfcheckout line and you can drive through tollbooths without stopping because a machine can read an electronic pass in your car as you sail through but machines whether guided by an algorithm or a human can do a lot more than that here are seven things you might not know are automated quicklist 1title surgery text surgeons can use robots to help with everything from hysterectomies to heart repairs doctors manipulate the robots using a 3d view finder proponents say robots can get to hardtoreach places and they limit the size of incisions and blood loss which can speed up recovery times but critics say that the risk of complications from mechanical medicine isnt actually lower and they worry about how doctors are trained to use the robots media 19446294 quicklist 2title college applications text some universities especially large public schools receive thousands of applications and dont have time read all of them so they use computers to screen people and whoever makes it past the baseline is then considered by actual human readers administrators in the huge university of california system use what they call a comprehensive approach to evaluate applicants that considers factors like community involvement and grades but applications must squeeze through a computer screening before they get in front of human eyes some critics complain using computers disadvantages students who might have a good reason for failing to meet base requirements because the computer doesnt give them a chance to explain media 19446764 quicklist 3title dronestext the military employs drones which are autonomous weapons that can be operated remotely by a human pilot right now the military does not have drones that act on their own but organizations like human rights watch worry that its a possibility and that as technology advances so will civilian deaths they say fully autonomous drones would be incapable of feeling emotion and more likely to pursue risky actions media 19446412 quicklist 4title stocktradingtext robots trade your money algorithms may now trigger 70 percent of all trades in us equities according to the atlantic they can trade faster and some say smarter than humans but they can also mess up malfunctioning algorithms at the new york stock exchange damaged some trading stations several years ago and critics worry that as more companies employ robots the potential for damage will soar media 19448613 quicklist 5title bombremovaltext bombremoval squads have a job thats every bit as dangerous as it sounds so technicians use robots that they control remotely to investigate suspicious objects the robots are trained to disarm or disrupt bombs and to pick up and place suspicious devices in safe containers they take some training and are not always as fast