---
title: What Not to Automate
osem_url: https://osem.seagl.org/conferences/seagl2018/program/proposals/577
beginning: '2018-11-10T10:45:00.000-08:00'
end: '2018-11-10T11:35:00.000-08:00'
presenters:
- name: Lucy Wyman
  affiliation: OSU Open Source Lab
  osem_url: https://osem.seagl.org/users/19
  gravatar_id: 352649b2e2f1dcf1bca77414eb0bfda1
  biography: |-
    I'm a software engineer for Puppet, where I'm currently working on our open source remote task runner Bolt. I graduated from Oregon State University with a BS in Computer Science in June 2016, where I worked as a Front-End Engineer for the OSU Open Source Lab. In my free time I enjoy hanging out with friends, hiking, experiencing new things, and enjoying a wide variety of podcasts, tv shows, blogs, books, and other media.

    You can see more of my work at <http://lucywyman.me> and <https://github.com/lucywyman>
    See conference presentations I've given at <https://slides.lucywyman.me>
    Or read my thoughts at <https://blog.lucywyman.me>
---

During a talk at DevOps Days Seattle the speaker stated
"Automate as much as you can". While this seems like an obvious statement at
first blush, on further inspection there are a number of exceptions to this
rule, begging the question: What shouldn't I automate? This talk will give
you a framework for deciding whether something is worth automating. We'll discuss:

* The return on investment of time to automate
* The ethical considerations of automating particular tasks, such as hiring
* Things that require humans intervention
* And more!

We'll consider this question through the lens of economics, business, ethics,
and psychology to explore the wide world of automation and it's consequences.
