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Truck driver is the most common profession in most states. Self-driving trucks will make their jobs obsolete overnight. Imagine the immediate effect of all thos

by edko 10y ago

Truck driver is the most common profession in most states. Self-driving trucks will make their jobs obsolete overnight. Imagine the immediate effect of all those people being without a job. What will happen to retail when those truckers buy less or stop buying? What will happen to wholesale shortly after? What will happen to all other industries? That truck drivers keep their jobs, or that they are gradually able to transition into new ones, is not just necessary not to feel bad about them, but to keep the whole economy running. Innovation is good. Unemploying a huge sector of our economy overnight because of innovation, I am not so sure.

cookiecaper 10y ago
>Truck driver is the most common profession in most states. You'll find that "software engineer" is becoming the most common profession in many states where truck driver previously was. [0] If truck drivers become software engineers, that's a big quality of life upgrade. You'll also find that prior to the computer revolution, "secretary" was the most common job, because it took a lot of people to coordinate normal business. Computers optimized that away and everything went fine. Capitalism doesn't work if we fret over the losing side in every competitive accomplishment. It's a competitive world out there, and some hustle is required. >Self-driving trucks will make their jobs obsolete overnight. It won't happen overnight. I personally don't think automated driving will be available to the masses half as quickly as most HNers seem to, but that's beside the point. Adoption will be cautious and gradual. No trucking company wants to risk their cargo or their reputation on tech that hasn't been proven ridiculously reliable. Small portions of fleets will be converted at first, and probably tested for at least a year before they're expanded out. Different companies will adopt at different times. Specialized trucks will have different requirements and may not be immediately available. There are regulatory issues that haven't even been broached as the technology is not fully realized yet -- I believe it will probably take a decade or more after the tech hits mass market before autonomous driving is a smooth legal process in all 50 states. Full adoption won't be able to occur until autonomous driving is universally legal. The point is that the whole industry is not just going to wake up one morning and find themselves replaced. >What will happen to retail? What will happen to wholesale shortly after? Nothing, because trucking companies won't disrupt service to their clients in the process of converting to an autonomous fleet. It'd ruin their business if they allowed technical upgrades to disrupt their schedules. >That truck drivers keep their jobs, or that they are gradually able to transition into new ones, is not just necessary not to feel bad about them, but to keep the whole economy running. They are able to gradually transition as the move to autonomous will be gradual. Nonetheless, companies do go belly up with little warning sometimes. It doesn't seem to stop the economy. Let me float this idea. A lot of truckers are owner-operators, which means they own their own cab and hook up someone else's cargo. Clients pay per job. Perhaps the fleet will become autonomous as owner-operators upgrade their cabs, at which point they'll make a lot more money because they can just dispatch their cab to get hooked up to some cargo and then be free to engage in other productive activities. Just one possibility that would be impeded by a government program to subsidize non-automated trucking. There is no need to be alarmist here. The transition will be gradual enough, and people will innovate as necessary to survive, as they have for centuries. [0] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-the-most-common-job-in-every-state http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-t...
- zigzigzag 10y ago
  Exactly. There's another possibility that nobody really likes to think about: automated trucking won't even start for decades or more. The railway industry is a good example of this. Trains run on dedicated pathways with hardly any traffic, they're the perfect example of a system that should be entirely computer controllable. Yet the world still has many, many train drivers. Computers could have and arguably should have replaced their jobs long before we even started thinking about the infinitely harder problem of cars and trucking, but outside of a few well known projects it hasn't happened because: 1) There are very few computer programmers in the world who can develop and lead ultra-high reliability automated driving software projects. 2) Of those programmers, many aren't interested in rail projects, partly because so many programmers are in the USA and Americans don't use rail much. 3) The companies that need to buy the tech tend to only have civil engineering expertise at the top and no software engineering expertise, making it impossible for them to select the best providers in the market, meaning the market doesn't force evolution towards better technology and project failures are frequent (markets need informed customers and there aren't enough informed customers in the tiny railway industry for this to work well). 4) Drivers unions are very powerful and railways are often state owned or at least heavily regulated, so there's little commercial force of will to pick fights with the workforce. The London Underground is a good example of these dynamics in action. Everyone here is assuming that the trucking industry will immediately adopt auto-driving technology if it's available. But that's making some big assumptions.
  - thesimon 10y ago
    >The London Underground is a good example of these dynamics in action. DLR on the other hand has been driverless for ages.
    - zigzigzag 10y ago
      Yes, exactly. Driverless trains are not technically reaching for the sky, yet deployment doesn't happen anyway due to social factors.

by edko 10y ago

cookiecaper 10y ago

>Truck driver is the most common profession in most states. You'll find that "software engineer" is becoming the most common profession in many states where truck driver previously was. [0] If truck drivers become software engineers, that's a big quality of life upgrade. You'll also find that prior to the computer revolution, "secretary" was the most common job, because it took a lot of people to coordinate normal business. Computers optimized that away and everything went fine. Capitalism doesn't work if we fret over the losing side in every competitive accomplishment. It's a competitive world out there, and some hustle is required. >Self-driving trucks will make their jobs obsolete overnight. It won't happen overnight. I personally don't think automated driving will be available to the masses half as quickly as most HNers seem to, but that's beside the point. Adoption will be cautious and gradual. No trucking company wants to risk their cargo or their reputation on tech that hasn't been proven ridiculously reliable. Small portions of fleets will be converted at first, and probably tested for at least a year before they're expanded out. Different companies will adopt at different times. Specialized trucks will have different requirements and may not be immediately available. There are regulatory issues that haven't even been broached as the technology is not fully realized yet -- I believe it will probably take a decade or more after the tech hits mass market before autonomous driving is a smooth legal process in all 50 states. Full adoption won't be able to occur until autonomous driving is universally legal. The point is that the whole industry is not just going to wake up one morning and find themselves replaced. >What will happen to retail? What will happen to wholesale shortly after? Nothing, because trucking companies won't disrupt service to their clients in the process of converting to an autonomous fleet. It'd ruin their business if they allowed technical upgrades to disrupt their schedules. >That truck drivers keep their jobs, or that they are gradually able to transition into new ones, is not just necessary not to feel bad about them, but to keep the whole economy running. They are able to gradually transition as the move to autonomous will be gradual. Nonetheless, companies do go belly up with little warning sometimes. It doesn't seem to stop the economy. Let me float this idea. A lot of truckers are owner-operators, which means they own their own cab and hook up someone else's cargo. Clients pay per job. Perhaps the fleet will become autonomous as owner-operators upgrade their cabs, at which point they'll make a lot more money because they can just dispatch their cab to get hooked up to some cargo and then be free to engage in other productive activities. Just one possibility that would be impeded by a government program to subsidize non-automated trucking. There is no need to be alarmist here. The transition will be gradual enough, and people will innovate as necessary to survive, as they have for centuries. [0] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-the-most-common-job-in-every-state http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-t...

zigzigzag 10y ago
Exactly. There's another possibility that nobody really likes to think about: automated trucking won't even start for decades or more. The railway industry is a good example of this. Trains run on dedicated pathways with hardly any traffic, they're the perfect example of a system that should be entirely computer controllable. Yet the world still has many, many train drivers. Computers could have and arguably should have replaced their jobs long before we even started thinking about the infinitely harder problem of cars and trucking, but outside of a few well known projects it hasn't happened because: 1) There are very few computer programmers in the world who can develop and lead ultra-high reliability automated driving software projects. 2) Of those programmers, many aren't interested in rail projects, partly because so many programmers are in the USA and Americans don't use rail much. 3) The companies that need to buy the tech tend to only have civil engineering expertise at the top and no software engineering expertise, making it impossible for them to select the best providers in the market, meaning the market doesn't force evolution towards better technology and project failures are frequent (markets need informed customers and there aren't enough informed customers in the tiny railway industry for this to work well). 4) Drivers unions are very powerful and railways are often state owned or at least heavily regulated, so there's little commercial force of will to pick fights with the workforce. The London Underground is a good example of these dynamics in action. Everyone here is assuming that the trucking industry will immediately adopt auto-driving technology if it's available. But that's making some big assumptions.
- thesimon 10y ago
  >The London Underground is a good example of these dynamics in action. DLR on the other hand has been driverless for ages.
  - zigzigzag 10y ago
    Yes, exactly. Driverless trains are not technically reaching for the sky, yet deployment doesn't happen anyway due to social factors.