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I wouldn't blast you, this has been our running office conversation for several months, usually brought up by a new article on automation. We're all doing what
by FussyZeus 11y ago
I wouldn't blast you, this has been our running office conversation for several months, usually brought up by a new article on automation.
We're all doing whatever the terrified version of munching popcorn is at the prospect of what will happen when the last accessible, no-education-required job that can earn a livable income, i.e. truck driving, can be done by robots. Unlike most jobs done by people with few skills, like burger flipping, the vast majority of people don't want humans actually doing them anymore, so the costs will be absorbed quicker by the shipping companies. Plus the cost of human drivers is high, things like insurance, benefits, 401k, etc. all could be used to replace them all with autonomous trucks.
Then you have an entire infrastructure that grew up around trucks, the truck stop (possibly the most American thing that can fit inside one building), all the highway side motels, on and on. All of these things we expect will fold within a decade or so of autonomous trucks becoming viable. With the trucks being automated a lot of what would be needed at a truck stop could then also be automated with little issue.
Then we have all the truck drivers, and all the people who served truck drivers, out of work with no decent career path. If I've ever heard of a plausible apocalypse scenario, that's it.
- jacques_chester 11y agoIn many US states, truck driver is the leading occupation. Admittedly the numbers are skewed by the way various professions are broken up, but as far as semi-skilled labour goes, driving is enormous.
- FussyZeus 11y agoAnd the center of a ton of small town economies.
- seibelj 11y agoThroughout the history of innovation, eliminating jobs did not eliminate work. New jobs sprang up. This has happened over and over. If you think that the deprecation of hundreds of thousands of jobs will mean that hundreds of thousands of people can't work anymore, you are sorely mistaken. This is a fallacy intelligent people have fallen into throughout the centuries. Automation and computers have been doing their jobs for decades now, and America is still at 5% unemployment. I'll keep betting on capitalism while others continue to think, "this time is different".
- FussyZeus 11y agoThis isn't eliminating jobs. This is making it so people don't need to do the jobs, but the work gets done anyway. That IS unprecedented, historical examples are where machines made the work easier or more efficient but still required people. We're talking about a TON of blue collar work that's not only possible to automate, but that the vast majority of people would WANT automated.
- seibelj 11y agoIt used to take many people to plow a field. Then the steel plow was invented, and it only took 1 person. The work got done with only 1 person. Now if a robot can do it, that's only 1 additional job eliminated. It is certainly precedented. It used to take a professional to work an elevator. Then it became so easy that we didn't need an elevator man. The work got done without any person.
- FussyZeus 11y agoExcept even in the busiest cities, elevator men weren't a load bearing column of the economy. Your comparison is failing to account for the sheer scale of the truck driving business and the importance of those salaries not just to the individuals, but to the communities in which they live.
- travem 11y agoThe first example provided addresses that precise point, the changes in agricultural communities have been significant.
- FussyZeus 11y agoExcept there were other jobs opening for them to take. This is historically unique because of how quickly the non or less-skilled labor market is shrinking (and even the skilled labor market, to a certain degree).
- deleted 11y ago