As I understand it, when NC first came to be, the owners of remote machinery used to call long distance with dimensions and then the puncher code was phoned back to a card puncher.  These cards where then taken to the NC machine and inserted, one at a time.  Later a person could type g-code into a word processor which would punch cards or later on, a continuous paper tape.  After a decade or so, the user could attach directly to the NC or CNC machine with a comp/laptop and download the data directly; with the correct electrical connection.

Nowadays the CNC machines come with a user interface and plug-ins to perform simple moves or to load programs that were downloaded from a computer with the conversion software.

I guess that none of this is a new concept to you.  Is it right to suspect that you or your employer (if applicable) would not make any profit from entering the thousands of keystrokes required to program at the machine.

Maybe I have mis-understood your post and all you wanted to know was that many others use a laptop and wired connection to the machine.  Many machines have this as standard now, but there was a time when it was an option.

If these are not the case please clarify.

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Yes its known that there are user interfaces and people use wired conection to the machine.

My question was how to automate the process of loading programs into the controller?

Some CNC machines (HAAS for one) have an available Ethernet option that allows you to make a portion of their memory a visible drive on the network. Click and Drag your programs in Windows Explorer, or whatever. This is provided that you already have programs, or have someone capable of writing them at a PC in Notepad or something similar. They can also be put on the "Sneaker Network". Have them save to floppy disk and run to the machine to dump it in.