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The Economic Consequences of Self-Driving Trucks
An anonymous reader writes: Last week we learned that self-driving big-rig trucks were finally being deployed on public roads in Nevada for testing purposes. Experts consider trucking to be ripe for replacement with AI because of the sheer volume of trucks on the road, and the relative simplicity of their routes. But the eventual replacement of truck drivers with autonomous driving systems will have a huge impact on the U.S. economy: there are 3.5 million professional truck drivers, and millions more are employed to support and coordinate them. Yet more people rely on truckers to stay in business — gas stations, motels, and restaurants along trucking routes, to name a few.
Now, that's not to say moving forward with autonomous driving is a bad idea — in 2012, roughly 4,000 people died in accidents with large trucks, and almost all of the accidents were caused by driver error. Saving most of those lives (and countless injuries) is important. But we need to start thinking about how to handle the 10 million people looking for work when the (human) trucking industry falls off a cliff. It's likely we'll see another wave of ghost towns spread across the poor parts of the country, as happened when the interstate highway system changed how long-range transportation worked in the U.S.
Now, that's not to say moving forward with autonomous driving is a bad idea — in 2012, roughly 4,000 people died in accidents with large trucks, and almost all of the accidents were caused by driver error. Saving most of those lives (and countless injuries) is important. But we need to start thinking about how to handle the 10 million people looking for work when the (human) trucking industry falls off a cliff. It's likely we'll see another wave of ghost towns spread across the poor parts of the country, as happened when the interstate highway system changed how long-range transportation worked in the U.S.
The summary says "in 2012, roughly 4,000 people died in accidents with large trucks, and almost all of the accidents were caused by driver error. Saving most of those lives (and countless injuries) is important." My brother is a truck driver, and from what he has told me, and also what I have seen reported multiple times, and what I have seen myself, the vast majority of accidents involving trucks are caused by car drivers misbehaving around truck. They pull stunts like pulling in front of them at merges then hitting the brakes. An autonomous truck will hit such a car just like a manned truck, so I think the claim that automating the trucks will save most of those lives is wrong.
In NJ, you aren't allowed to pump your own gas so that you will keep the guy who pumps it employed. They *could* have employed him dong something useful--thing TVA-type programs where he's doing a job to improve the environment, for example--but this is what they picked. There will be pushback against automated trucks in a similar fashion, although of course they're so much more proficient that they will prevail in the end.
There are a lot of trucks where liability or small tasks that still require human judgment will keep with human drivers for a good long while yet. Fuel Trucks delivering to local gas stations, septic trucks and heating oil trucks that have to find a port in every person's yard, etc...
I do wonder whether the amount of stuff that falls off the back of the truck will go up or down. Less oversight of the stuff, but less chance for a driver to be in collusion with the people who fall things off the back of trucks.
I can't imagine that even with trucks driving themselves, that we wouldn't want or need someone being with the truck. For interactions with people for delivery, to handle mechanical problems or unexpected issues that would arise.
I just don't think it'll be the employment collapse everyone is imagining, I just think we'll move from truck driver to truck manager.
Yeah, God knows we don't need any of that advanced technology crap!
Next thing you know, they might develop big machines to replace covered wagons and plows. Then where will we be, when all those teamsters and farmers are put out of work?
And what's with these "computer" things? Everyone knows a computer is a (usually) young woman who calculates (by hand) the numbers required by Real Scientists (tm). Replace them with machines? I say no!
I say we just destroy all that automation and go back to the tried and true ways we've always known! Ned Ludd Lives!
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
But the eventual replacement of truck drivers with autonomous driving systems will have a huge impact on the U.S. economy: there are 3.5 million professional truck drivers, and millions more are employed to support and coordinate them.
Who said anything about replacing truck drivers with autonomous driving systems? Airplanes have autopilot, but they still require TWO pilots. Autonomous trucking systems will be no different. Somebody will have to drive it in city traffic and park it at the freight terminal, and take over when the autonomous system doesn't know how to handle a situation. The difference is that in a plane you usually have seconds or minutes to take over the system, whereas on a road with cars mere feet away, a trucker will have fractions of a second to respond and take over to a situation.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
let the markets sort themselves out.
No worries, millions can move into the "big rig hijacking" business! A semi-trailer full of something easy to sell on the street, or a tanker full of a chemical useful in making meth, or of gasoline (gasoline smuggling was the mafia's most profitable business for years) - all very valuable targets. Today that theft is kept somewhat in check by the real risk of getting shot in the process, or of wrecking the rig if your try a scene out of a Fast and Furious movie. But an AI truck with safety reflexes on a lonely stretch of road? Well, the markets will sort themselves out.
As for the legal trade, driving is a crappy job unless you own your truck, and I rather suspect the owner/operators of today will become the owners of tomorrow. Truckstops may go the way of the buggy whip, but I can't see that happening fast - like all infrastructure changes, the capital outlay is so high this will be a 20-50 year transition.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Also, refueling? En route maintenance. Stuff like that?
There is more to being a truck driver than just driving.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
This time around I think the services sector, which is kind of the only thing absorbing overflow, might just be unable to grow further. If anything, it might implode and add to the bulk of socialism/violence, as the truckers who use the services can't do that anymore. Call centres can only call so many people, and they need those people to have some sort of revenue they want to give to the call centre people. But when it gets to "my call centre people call your call centre people" for the purpose of profit generation, it kind of ends up with both call centres firing their people and shutting down.
Oh, I know, all those truckers could learn PHP and take the jobs of the H1-B Indians :) Code quality-wise, and wage-wise, nobody would be able to tell the difference.
Wrong. The solution is, and has always been, the complete elimination of the now useless people. There will be paradise on earth, one day, but only for the One Percenters. The world is being remade by, and for, the Ruling Elite. If you're not part of it now you will never be and neither will any of your descendants. You're part of the surplus populace scheduled for eradication. Sorry.
I think the transition will take at most 2 to 5 years once the tech is commercially available, because the cost of a driver is $40k minimum per year. If you can outfit a truck with an auto-driver for $40k it starts to pay off really quickly.
It also lets you operate the trucks 24 hours per day (minus maintenance and refueling).
Apparently you are the one who doesn't understand economics. Prices are whatever the market can bear. If the costs can be lowered, it does not mean that the prices go down because they are already at whatever the market can bear. Prices will stay the same, corporate profits will raise.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Honestly, we can kick that can a lot farther down the road than you may suspect. When self driving trucks first become a reality, they are going to be used as 'autopilot' where they do the over-the-highway driving, and human drivers do the 'last mile' because the last mile can be a tricky bastard for a human, let alone a computer. Many deliveries take place where the truck must jack knife the truck in the middle of a street, back into an ally and around a corner in reverse, and center up on a loading dock, or some variant thereof. As the initial action (blocking all lanes of traffic) requires something that by most standards would be a traffic violation, it becomes extremely hard to program a computer to make the final approach to the dock, while still following all its 'road safety' rules. It could be decades before we get our software/AI advanced enough for that, and until then, self driving trucks are going to require skilled drivers in the seat, waiting their turn.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
*pfft* And you're telling me the Democrats give a flying fuck about your jobs either? Who is pushing the H1-B visas so fucking hard? Oh that's right, Democrats.
The politicians are shitty but a lot of the reason they're so shitty is because of tribalistic asshats like you that slavishly associate with a faction. This permits which ever faction you associate with to get away with ANYTHING and you'll forgive them. And the opposing faction could be fucking Jesus Christ walking around giving sight to the blind and you'd still hate them.
You're a fucking cancer on the political system.
Do not vote political parties. Neither the democrats nor the republicans are actually on the ballots. It is just people. PEOPLE. Individuals. Vote for them. Fuck parties. Just look at the people. Evaluate them on a personal level.
That's as good as you'll be able to do in this political system. But really you're not helping anyone by saying "oh its all this political party's fault"...
What if the republicans didn't exist at all? And lets say we a choice between the democrats and some other leftish party. I don't know... the Greens or something. Who wants to bet that someone would be saying in no time "If only the greens weren't there everything would be better".
Its bullshit. This is the sort of crap dictators tell their starving people to explain why their country is shitty. They say "it is because of those evil foreigners!"...
Look at Baltimore, chump. You know the city that recently rioted. Riddle me this, when was the last time that city was run by Republicans? Exactly. The whole country could be run lock stock and barrel by the democrats and most of the shit you're upset about would either not change or might even get worse.
You're mad about markets and capitalism? Tough shit. Not even the Soviets could kill capitalism INSIDE the soviet union during the cold war. The market is forever. You can't kill it. It is a dynamic inevitability, No stable society can exist that does not account for the market in a substantive way.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Will be interested to see how AI deals with a mountain pass or city traffic;
I'd be interested as to how they will deal with 6" of snow, and no real lane lines.
What you describe sounds analogous to harbour-pilots that are used to navigate big ships in and out of port. They belong with the port, not the ship.
You could imagine that long distance truck journeys could happen without any driver on board, then they pick up a driver just on the edge of a city to take them to their final delivery.
We had no regulations under Laissez Faire, and it killed growth. Monopolistic abuses, and anti-competitive actions were the norm. How many times do we need to try it before it works the way the neo-liberals (the non-US term for the us term "conservative") say it will?
Learn to love Alaska
stop repeating this nonsense about technology not disrupting peoples lives. Yes, over the course of several decades the economy replaced those jobs. In the meantime millions were without work. There's a reason why the Luddites existed. That word has meaning beyond an insult. There was nearly 60 years of joblessness following the industrial revolution before other tech caught up. Google it. Read some history. Jeez.
I agree the solution isn't to go back on technology though. It's socialism. Plain 'ole socialism. When we don't need these people to work we don't just let them starve while we all take turns seeing who can make the 1% the happiest. And btw, I said _socialism_, not communism. And not a fascist dictatorship that occasionally publishes a pamphlet with something written by Karl Marx either...
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Other things that are cheaper: food, fuel, clothing, entertainment. If you measure the price by "how many hours would the average person have to work to buy it", then almost everything is cheaper.
This has all happened before, and it will all happen again.
When the resource sector automated everyone moved to manufacturing, when manufacturing automated everyone moved to service, now that service is automating where exactly do you expect them to go?
A functioning society requires jobs that pay a livable wage
No, Capitalism requires that. There is nothing fundamental to society that requires capitalism.
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If the driver is only needed during emergencies, they won't be awake enough to do much when the emergency hits. The same is true for cars as well, after sitting in the car for hours doing nothing you'll zone out. Even a short trip you take every day will get ignored.
Besides, in an emergency the two choices are to brake or to try to turn. In a big rig trying to make a fast turn is probably just going to make the situation worse. A computer can hit the brakes just as well as an unprepared human.
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