You do realize that the game is still in beta and that the mining is scheduled to go in at a later date?

They can be turned into credits. The AI won't mine resources but they will sell their Mother and first born son for yours.

Two Betas ago I argued for the same thing. I want a reason to see those resources and bee line right to them. All resources 'should' in my opinion give a minor boost to manufacturing empire wide. You are putting people to work and they are in turned building the economy. Granted in all the mining shots Paul created we have 'bots' doing the mining but still someone has to sit at a console and say, yep they are working....

I have asked many times to redo defenses so that we can get useful augments to buff defenses. Right now fights are too fast, if we had 'defensive' augments I would bee line to them and build them on my ships. Mining would once again (as it should be) be critical to space exploration and empire building.