Automation is growing at Australia's biggest gold mine — but at what cost? In short: The mining industry is transforming, as workers move from on-the-ground roles to roles in control rooms. At Boddington, Australia's largest gold mine, leaders say automation has significantly improved function and efficiency. Unions and experts have concerns over safety and jobs. At Australia's biggest gold mine, a real life video game is playing out. These days, the two open-cut pits at the Boddington Gold Mine, around 130km south of Perth, are largely empty of human staff. In a control room kilometres away, workers sit behind screens in comfortable chairs, keeping the mine operating and the gold moving by using what look a lot like gaming controllers. Many of these workers were once truck drivers or drill operators. Newmont Boddington General Manager Chris Dark says the benefits are widespread. "We were the first gold mine to put in autonomous trucks and to use autonomous drills," he said. "We also (are) really moving a lot less people into the mine — there's a lot less interaction inside the mine." This, Mr Dark argues, is the most significant benefit. "It's safer and more productive and it sets us up in the long term to put less people in and around moving operating equipment,"he said. Automation unavoidable The workers are in the midst of an industry looking to push further and further into the use of both automation and AI. Australia's peak scientific body says the autonomous revolution's impacts are being felt across the resources sector. "This has been a highly innovative industry for a number of years, and certainly over the past decade, a lot of those innovations have really started to bear fruit," CSIRO mining researcher Chad Hargrave said. "We're a lot more focused on innovation than maybe