Given the level of care required in writing software for running the national electrical grid, I think it's quite likely that writing the automation software would be more expensive than paying a human to deal with it. (Especially since this is just a small part of his day -- he presumably has other responsibilities as well.)

Exactly. And you'd still need the man to watch the computer (we have unions in the UK too), and then of course the dog to bite the man.

If it ain't broke...

But when you automate things the benefits are often orders of magnitude larger than simply the cost savings from the jobs you replace.

Emphasis should be on often. I don't think a cost benefit analysis would show automation in this instance to be worthwhile. But it would be interesting to see if I'm right!

I would assume that the National Grid have done such an analysis and determined that it isn't worthwhile, seeing as how... they still employ a bloke to do the job!

I'm pretty cynical... I suspect the analysis was - do we allow the guy on duty watch East Enders and do his job after hours, and pay him a bit of overtime, or do we pend a lot of money for IT to come up with an automated solution that might not work th first time...

There is already an impressive amount of work put towards the software monitoring the whole grid, as well as its frequency. I don't think engineering is the problem.

It's not just "turn those and those supplies on when the show ends" but actually managing the best possible supplies and possible exceptions. Plus, the show ending is a very visual example, but I'm sure not always (and not everything) is up to EastEnders credits rolling.

People like you will be the death of us all someday.

If humans end up creating an army of robots that genuinely are better than humans in every conceivable way, why /should/ we continue to exist? (Other than how humans currently allow animals "lower" than ourselves to exist, ie for food and entertainment)

I dunno about should, but we would likely be competed out of existence.

Remember that determining when something on TV ends is not that simple. Most will leave when the credits show. And for football when people leave could actually depend on which teams play and which team wins. E.g. if England wins I bet the spike will be delayed. Teaching an AI this seems unnecessary compared to just having a human do this.