10 ms·

White House predicts all truck, taxi, and delivery drivers will be wiped out

102 points by electic 10y ago

electic 10y ago
This could have a chilling effect, especially for folks in the midwest who tend to rely on trucking for their livelihood[1]. [1] 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...
- k2enemy 10y ago
  Yes, this will be a big problem to confront, but it should be noted that the NPR story is very misleading: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/no-truck-driver-isnt-the-most-common-job-in-your-state-2015-02-12 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/no-truck-driver-isnt-the-mo...
blakesterz 10y ago
>> What those new jobs for truck or delivery drivers might be is “not currently foreseeable.” I wonder if the same thing has been said about other professions that have been more or less wiped out in the past? I would guess the answer is "yes" And then the next logical question is "So what did all those people end up doing?" Maybe that's how we being to answer the question of what all the truck, taxi and delivery drivers can be doing when those jobs are gone? Or do those jobs just get phased out as people leave them? Like people who quit for whatever reason are just not replaced by other people, they get replaced with the bots (or whatever we call the things that are replacing people here). [Added thought] Maybe the answer is found in how secretaries were replaced? They were recently the most popular jobs in many states, and now are not.
- electic 10y ago
  Most of these folks will be phased out but likely might never find work again. Things are different this time. There are multiple regions in the United States and the world solely focused on disrupting entire industries by automating them. In the past, the speed of automation was slower giving time for people to adapt. Going forward, things will be swift and I am not sure what these people will do.
  - pm90 10y ago
    I think that is precisely why the White House is weighing in on this. Unfortunately, the Obama administration seems to be the only branch of the US legislature that is willing to look at the real issues that will cause much pain for US citizens in the future (instead of bickering about religion, climate change denial etc.)
    - wavefunction 10y ago
      Just a nit, President Obama heads the Executive branch of the US Federal government, with the other two branches being the Judicial branch (Supreme Court of the USA), and the Legislative branch (Congress).
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- badsock 10y ago
  Presuming that the replacement jobs all show up (which I'm bearish about), the thing about any kind of new job is that (IMO) they will be disposable. To survive we need food, shelter, clothing, and medicine. Food production has been automated, distribution is about to be. Clothes washing was automated, production is about to be. Medical diagnostics is about to be automated, though it will take a while for a nurse's job to be. Shelter is going to be (IMO) automated in the next few decades. Whatever replacement jobs are going to arrive will be completely disjoint from actual needs. Everyone's going to be pet manicurists, metaphorically. One huge problem with that that I can see is if there's an economic contraction and everyone tightens their belts at the same time, there's going to be a snowball effect as everyone gets rid of their unnecessary luxuries, which now employs 99% of the workforce. It will hit rock bottom when we realize that the only things that we really need are all now provided by robots and the %1 of people still employed.
- wildgift 10y ago
  Secretaries still exist, but the job's divided into two broad categories. Receptionists, who don't make much, and executive secretaries who make middle class salaries. The latter do well because they assist people who are powerful. They generally need college-level writing skills, a diplomatic personality, and some management skills.
- gluggymug 10y ago
  "Maybe that's how we being to answer the question of what all the truck, taxi and delivery drivers can be doing when those jobs are gone?" Dunno but I will be stealing the tyres off Auto-Ubers to make my tyre shack/mansion in shanty town.
  - maverick_iceman 10y ago
    Like the Luddites?
    - gluggymug 10y ago
      I think they just broke stuff. I am talking about harvesting for resources to construct my slum on top of the junkyard of robot parts. It's not going to cause a problem. The uber robot can auto-claim on its robo-insurance which is less than regular insurance because they don't crash as much. They just have to wait around for their auto tow truck who is having a crazy busy week.
srssays 10y ago
Amazon Go will be worse. There are a lot more retail workers than drivers. The technology is closer to fruition: Amazon has a working autonomous store, but we are still a long way from fully autonomous vehicles. The hardware requirements for any store that wants to adopt Amazon's tech are minimal: some cameras, an entry gate and possibly some pressure pads under the shelves. Even if Amazon doesn't license out their tech -- and they would be foolish not to -- you can be sure that Google and Microsoft are working on their own versions. The market is staggeringly big.
- electic 10y ago
  Good breakdown of numbers in the transportation sector: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/h...
- pm90 10y ago
  Hmmm...I would respectfully disagree :). While it would most certainly impact stores by reducing cash clerks etc. people would still be required for warehousing/monitoring etc. A lot of high volume retailers/grocers already have a self-checkout station, if they had wanted more automation, they would probably just increase the number of these stations. Also, anything more than a basic grocer would still want real people to help people with purchasing etc.
  - notheguyouthink 10y ago
    > A lot of high volume retailers/grocers already have a self-checkout station, if they had wanted more automation, they would probably just increase the number of these stations. I mean, this is a great example against your point (imo). Those self checkout stands, sure they do employ a staffer to monitor, but each of those stands is basically a line that doesn't have to be employed by a dedicated staffer. They managed to potentially drastically reduce the number of required staffers via self checkouts. I say potentially, because 1 self checkout doesn't inherently equal one checkout clerk, but you get where i'm going with this. If my safeway can fire the 6 clerks i regularly see staffing the checkout lines, and hire 1 to monitor.. that's still a drastic layoff. And what about all the manual labor involved? I'm sure it won't be all robots stocking shelves, so mostly stockers can remain employed for the time being, but i'm sure at least a few employees who specialize in managing stock will be laid off as well. Just because it's not 100% layoff doesn't mean it's any less serious, imo. We're slowly decreasing the available job market simply put. Where are these people going to go?
amelius 10y ago
Another question is: who will be getting their money? And then: is that fair? In the long run, shouldn't technological progress benefit us all equally?
- chillydawg 10y ago
  Everyone in the world will benefit from a substantial consumer surplus from not having to pay the wages of every driver involved in the supply chain of products bought and sold. Of course, the subset of people who got fired will not have a great time, but the rest of us will benefit hugely, and hopefully our taxes will help cushion their blow with re training assistance and other benefits.
  - tyingq 10y ago
    Is that necessarily how it works? I'm no economics expert, but what compels the savings to be passed back to consumers, versus just being reaped as additional margin? Edit: I'm assuming less competition, since the barrier to entry for a fully automated trucking company would be higher than a traditional human driven fleet.
    - amelius 10y ago
      Yes, an autonomous truck company could temporarily lower their prices, thereby killing all their competitors, and then increase their prices to an unreasonable point.
      - AdieuToLogic 10y ago
        This is the Luxottica[1] model employed in the eyewear market. I think it is reasonable to consider that a similar situation could develop in the shipping industry, given a sufficiently disruptive + monopolized offering. 1 - http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/sticker-shock-why-are-glasses-so-expensive-4/ http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/sticker-shock-why-are-glasses-...
    - jfoster 10y ago
coldcode 10y ago
In a long enough timeframe, most of our jobs will become obsolete; the question is how long? As a programmer I am not worried, as AI isn't really smart enough to interpret the crap I am asked to build.
jccooper 10y ago
Barring major infrastructure and cultural changes, or general purpose ambulatory robots, delivery trucks will still need humans on board to handle the delivery (and pickup) part. No self-driving car is delivering to the seventh floor, and I'm certainly not operating the lift gate myself for LTL pallet deliveries. That's a pretty fair part of the commercial fleet, though vehicles with self-mobile cargo (taxis) or dedicated handlers on each end (long haul) are quite amenable to automation.
- rch 10y ago
  So last-mile service is becoming last-yard service. That's a good way to think of it because these will be subsistence jobs, or slightly below. Employees will no longer need a commercial license, or even a clean driving record.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  >>Barring major infrastructure and cultural changes, or general purpose ambulatory robots, delivery trucks will still need humans on board to handle the delivery (and pickup) part. Sure, but those humans won't be needed during the vast majority of the trip. The truck can make a pit stop at a "last mile" facility to pick up the human loaders/unloaders (who can be minimum wage temps).
- eksemplar 10y ago
  I think we're going to see some innovating in the mailbox and/or the front door as well. I mean who really wants to accept a package when it could be automated.
- subhobroto 10y ago
  > delivery trucks will still need humans on board to handle the delivery (and pickup) part. No self-driving car is delivering to the seventh floor Good point. Sure, there will be human intervention required for edge cases but it will be humans augmenting technology, not technology augmenting humans in transportation. I expanded in my comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13230336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13230336
- the8472 10y ago
wernerb 10y ago
I feel this short (but worthwhile) video explains the problem best. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
- pdkl95 10y ago
  I recommend also watching Mark Blyth's brief overview[1] of how this problem has already affected the political landscape over the last several decades. Significant changes need to be made immediately to handle the changes technology is forcing on the economy. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWMmBG3Z4DI#t=792 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWMmBG3Z4DI#t=792
untog 10y ago
There's a fascinating (if strongly worded) article on Recode that touches on this: http://www.recode.net/2016/12/19/13600538/silicon-valley-grow-up-donald-trump-election http://www.recode.net/2016/12/19/13600538/silicon-valley-gro... In short: Silicon Valley is going to drive a lot of job losses in the not too distant future. There's a very real danger that will blow back as mass unemployment drives people to extremes, unless people start thinking very seriously about what this new world is going to look like, and how the vast majority of the country will earn a living.
- djsumdog 10y ago
  I really hate the idea that everyone needs to work. I get paid a lot as a software engineer to write stuff. Over the years, I've just seen so much money poured into tech that makes people buy more tech or that does nothing but license intellectual property. I quit my job for 11 months in 2015 and flew around the world; backpacking off my savings: http://khanism.org/perspective/minimalism/ http://khanism.org/perspective/minimalism/ It was the happiest time of my life. I'm planning on getting some funding sources for next time (Pateron, grants for OSS projects, etc.) and see if I can make it longer next time. I'd rather just make enough, making content and tech that I like and find useful, supported by peers, than working the the current tech world. Reynolds envisioned a world like this in his book Army of Davids. I think he painted an overly rosy outlook and neglected to realize how difficult it is to start small businesses or how little time people have after their day jobs to work on things. (You can kinda glaze over those things when you're a UT professor).
  - untog 10y ago
    The answer doesn't have to be that everyone has a job. It could be universal basic income. It could be any array of things. But the question is, does Patreon, OSS grants and the like scale to the entire population of a country? My instinct is "no". Yet it's likely that a lot of people will be looking for alternative means by which to live life within our lifetimes, and no-one is really looking for broadly applicable answers.
    - 10y ago
georgeecollins 10y ago
This may not be unprecedented, and hence may not be worse overall than other historical changes in employment. Yes, eventually all delivery driving of people and things will be able to be replaced by machines. But it doesn't exist today to do it safely and reliably in all cases. Imagine if the technology did exist today to do safely and reliably in all cases. It would still take a huge capital investment and turnover of equipment to replace or refit all the human driven vehicles. It would be hard to do in a decade. So imagine it takes another five to ten years to drive the cost down and work out the kinks with weather and construction and so on and ten years to do the actual replacing. Keep in mind the existing equipment and labor will get cheaper as it starts to get replaced, slowing the transition. It seems it like the whole transition could take twenty years. So in twenty years a major job category is going to get wiped out. Like lamplighters, stable hands, textile workers etc. The US has had twenty year periods where 10% of the population has quit farming (https://www.census.gov/population/censusdata/table-4.pdf https://www.census.gov/population/censusdata/table-4.pdf). This will be a big change, but it may not be a worse change than some that have happened in the past.
- djsumdog 10y ago
  I still don't think driverless tech is even there yet. What Uber is doing in San Francisco is a little scary. I'm waiting for the first fatality. Autonomous vehicles will also not solve the transportation problem. A hundred automated trucks still doesn't come anywhere near the efficiency of three freight engines pulling the same load. Even if every car was autonomous on the Interstate, you might get rid of gridlock but you'd still have a lot of people moving very slowly; well under the theoretical maximum capacity for single lane transport. I wrote a post describing this: http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-solve-the-transportation-problem/ http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-sol...
  - coredog64 10y ago
    OTR trucking is about speed and flexibility, not cost. I would love to see more freight shipped via train, but at the same time I'm very much liking 2 day Prime delivery.
subhobroto 10y ago
Technical innovation moves and concentrates the savings to the top of the chain. Technical innovation is a capital expenditure that pays off large returns in the long term. Technical innovation permanently removes/drastically minimizes OpEx for those willing to put up with significant capital expenditure (in building the Technology in the first place): but once done, those jobs are gone. It made mining, telephone, retail, manufacturing etc companies drastically minimize their dependence on human labor. These are salaries that will never ever need to be paid that goes directly to the bottomline. Next up is transportation. Most governments dont want to be bothered with transportation and run it inefficiently. New companies are capitalizing on this to establish future oligopolies: https://www.quora.com/What-controls-help-ensure-the-growing-ride-share-companies-dont-eventually-hold-us-ransom-after-public-private-transportation-has-eroded-away https://www.quora.com/What-controls-help-ensure-the-growing-... Sure, there will be human intervention required for edge cases but it will be humans augmenting technology, not technology augmenting humans in transportation. Electric (and autonomous) vehicles are going to be the next PC era that is going to change the world for decades and build the new billionaires.
- Eridrus 10y ago
  I am curious if anyone has done an analysis to see how much of the capital expenditures going to automation goes to labor vs profits/return on capital. I could definitely see the case that almost none of it is going to labor in the end, but it would be interesting to see a real study.
- dao- 10y ago
  > These are salaries that will never ever need to be paid that goes directly to the bottomline. This is only true for the first innovators. Competition means that these 'saleries' will just disappear rather than going directly to the bottomline. Exchange value (~ the price) shrinks as you replace human labour, as Karl Marx would already have told you. ;) And that's not even a bad thing. It's good that people don't have to waste their lives in mines etc. The crucial question is how we as a society deal with this.
  - intended 10y ago
analog31 10y ago
At the extreme, a drastic decline in incomes, through unemployment or wage reduction, would eliminate the need for trucks altogether, because there would be no money to drive demand for goods.
pier25 10y ago
I'm guessing with the rise of automated jobs there will be a huge rise in electrical and mechanical engineers. After all, someone has to take care of those machines, no?
- lotsoflumens 10y ago
  I don't think so - the machines will serviced by machines. It's easier to design machines that can be easily maintained by machines than to design machines that can replace humans.
gooseus 10y ago
I see a lot of speculation about how this is going to play out when the robots take our jobs so hey, why not join in right? Holiday week and all. We know what people have done in the past when this sort of thing has happened - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite > The Luddites were a group of English textile workers and self-employed weavers in the 19th century that used the destruction of machinery as a form of protest. I think that once the robots take enough jobs such that the anti-automation movement reaches a critical mass (and it won't take 100% of the jobs to do that, prob not even 50%) then we'll start seeing these sorts of things happen. Sabotage of driverless cars will be trivial to carry out and very expensive to deal with... some forms may not have adequate protection under criminal law yet, which will require cooperation with legislators and law enforcement to address (good luck with that Uber). I'm thinking things like finding and intentionally exploiting environmental cues that driverless cars use to make decisions (releasing plastic bags into intersections?) or else using directed radio interference to prevent them from communicating with homebase to know where to go next. Some of these may be protected already by FCC or EPA or state-level equivalents, but will enforcement be up to the task? Is the FCC prepared to monitor and enforce local signal interference for corporations? Is a $500 littering fine enough to dissuade individuals and groups from continuing in "civil disobedience"? My core point is that if anyone thinks people are going to take this lying down then they don't know human beings. Everyone is only 3 missed meals away from doing "whatever it takes" and that's even less if it's your kid(s) that are missing the meals. If nothing is in place when the layoffs come then it'll take no time for former workers to organize and take matters into their own hands... within that election cycle the organization will be co-opted by some other ideology which conflates their anger at losing their job to automation with race, class, political affiliation, etc. /speculation
selimthegrim 10y ago
The report also comes out against UBI.
Deckard256 10y ago
I've worked for a medical laboratory as a courier for eleven years. I don't think all of these jobs will be completely wiped out, for several reasons hit on by people in this thread. Many of the things I do on a daily basis can be automated, (I know because I've been able to automate parts of my job), but other parts will prove to be such a high bar, it will be twenty years before they will be cost effective and/or the technology is created. I worry more about low cost, easy to use scanning technologies displacing my job more than I do automated vehicles, at least in the near term. Retraining those of us who want it really wouldn't be as daunting a task as it sounds. I've been able to listen to thousands of hours of audio while I drive, both audio books and university classes, and I encourage my coworkers to do the same. Most of us understand that this line of work will be disrupted at some point. Places like Uber will lead the front of the change. Business like where I am at, where I handle hazardous materials, and places like ups, which have unions blocking automation, will take quite a bit longer in switching over to autonomous vehicles.
amelius 10y ago
If only AI could wipe out the advertisement industry first ...
Jam-B 10y ago
Duh.

102 points by electic 10y ago

This could have a chilling effect, especially for folks in the midwest who tend to rely on trucking for their livelihood[1]. [1] 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...

k2enemy 10y ago
Yes, this will be a big problem to confront, but it should be noted that the NPR story is very misleading: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/no-truck-driver-isnt-the-most-common-job-in-your-state-2015-02-12 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/no-truck-driver-isnt-the-mo...

blakesterz 10y ago

>> What those new jobs for truck or delivery drivers might be is “not currently foreseeable.” I wonder if the same thing has been said about other professions that have been more or less wiped out in the past? I would guess the answer is "yes" And then the next logical question is "So what did all those people end up doing?" Maybe that's how we being to answer the question of what all the truck, taxi and delivery drivers can be doing when those jobs are gone? Or do those jobs just get phased out as people leave them? Like people who quit for whatever reason are just not replaced by other people, they get replaced with the bots (or whatever we call the things that are replacing people here). [Added thought] Maybe the answer is found in how secretaries were replaced? They were recently the most popular jobs in many states, and now are not.

electic 10y ago
Most of these folks will be phased out but likely might never find work again. Things are different this time. There are multiple regions in the United States and the world solely focused on disrupting entire industries by automating them. In the past, the speed of automation was slower giving time for people to adapt. Going forward, things will be swift and I am not sure what these people will do.
- pm90 10y ago
  I think that is precisely why the White House is weighing in on this. Unfortunately, the Obama administration seems to be the only branch of the US legislature that is willing to look at the real issues that will cause much pain for US citizens in the future (instead of bickering about religion, climate change denial etc.)
  - wavefunction 10y ago
    Just a nit, President Obama heads the Executive branch of the US Federal government, with the other two branches being the Judicial branch (Supreme Court of the USA), and the Legislative branch (Congress).
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
badsock 10y ago
Presuming that the replacement jobs all show up (which I'm bearish about), the thing about any kind of new job is that (IMO) they will be disposable. To survive we need food, shelter, clothing, and medicine. Food production has been automated, distribution is about to be. Clothes washing was automated, production is about to be. Medical diagnostics is about to be automated, though it will take a while for a nurse's job to be. Shelter is going to be (IMO) automated in the next few decades. Whatever replacement jobs are going to arrive will be completely disjoint from actual needs. Everyone's going to be pet manicurists, metaphorically. One huge problem with that that I can see is if there's an economic contraction and everyone tightens their belts at the same time, there's going to be a snowball effect as everyone gets rid of their unnecessary luxuries, which now employs 99% of the workforce. It will hit rock bottom when we realize that the only things that we really need are all now provided by robots and the %1 of people still employed.
wildgift 10y ago
Secretaries still exist, but the job's divided into two broad categories. Receptionists, who don't make much, and executive secretaries who make middle class salaries. The latter do well because they assist people who are powerful. They generally need college-level writing skills, a diplomatic personality, and some management skills.
gluggymug 10y ago
"Maybe that's how we being to answer the question of what all the truck, taxi and delivery drivers can be doing when those jobs are gone?" Dunno but I will be stealing the tyres off Auto-Ubers to make my tyre shack/mansion in shanty town.
- maverick_iceman 10y ago
  Like the Luddites?
  - gluggymug 10y ago
    I think they just broke stuff. I am talking about harvesting for resources to construct my slum on top of the junkyard of robot parts. It's not going to cause a problem. The uber robot can auto-claim on its robo-insurance which is less than regular insurance because they don't crash as much. They just have to wait around for their auto tow truck who is having a crazy busy week.

srssays 10y ago

Amazon Go will be worse. There are a lot more retail workers than drivers. The technology is closer to fruition: Amazon has a working autonomous store, but we are still a long way from fully autonomous vehicles. The hardware requirements for any store that wants to adopt Amazon's tech are minimal: some cameras, an entry gate and possibly some pressure pads under the shelves. Even if Amazon doesn't license out their tech -- and they would be foolish not to -- you can be sure that Google and Microsoft are working on their own versions. The market is staggeringly big.

electic 10y ago
Good breakdown of numbers in the transportation sector: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/h...
pm90 10y ago
Hmmm...I would respectfully disagree :). While it would most certainly impact stores by reducing cash clerks etc. people would still be required for warehousing/monitoring etc. A lot of high volume retailers/grocers already have a self-checkout station, if they had wanted more automation, they would probably just increase the number of these stations. Also, anything more than a basic grocer would still want real people to help people with purchasing etc.
- notheguyouthink 10y ago
  > A lot of high volume retailers/grocers already have a self-checkout station, if they had wanted more automation, they would probably just increase the number of these stations. I mean, this is a great example against your point (imo). Those self checkout stands, sure they do employ a staffer to monitor, but each of those stands is basically a line that doesn't have to be employed by a dedicated staffer. They managed to potentially drastically reduce the number of required staffers via self checkouts. I say potentially, because 1 self checkout doesn't inherently equal one checkout clerk, but you get where i'm going with this. If my safeway can fire the 6 clerks i regularly see staffing the checkout lines, and hire 1 to monitor.. that's still a drastic layoff. And what about all the manual labor involved? I'm sure it won't be all robots stocking shelves, so mostly stockers can remain employed for the time being, but i'm sure at least a few employees who specialize in managing stock will be laid off as well. Just because it's not 100% layoff doesn't mean it's any less serious, imo. We're slowly decreasing the available job market simply put. Where are these people going to go?

amelius 10y ago

Another question is: who will be getting their money? And then: is that fair? In the long run, shouldn't technological progress benefit us all equally?

chillydawg 10y ago
Everyone in the world will benefit from a substantial consumer surplus from not having to pay the wages of every driver involved in the supply chain of products bought and sold. Of course, the subset of people who got fired will not have a great time, but the rest of us will benefit hugely, and hopefully our taxes will help cushion their blow with re training assistance and other benefits.
- tyingq 10y ago
  Is that necessarily how it works? I'm no economics expert, but what compels the savings to be passed back to consumers, versus just being reaped as additional margin? Edit: I'm assuming less competition, since the barrier to entry for a fully automated trucking company would be higher than a traditional human driven fleet.
  - amelius 10y ago
    Yes, an autonomous truck company could temporarily lower their prices, thereby killing all their competitors, and then increase their prices to an unreasonable point.
    - AdieuToLogic 10y ago
      This is the Luxottica[1] model employed in the eyewear market. I think it is reasonable to consider that a similar situation could develop in the shipping industry, given a sufficiently disruptive + monopolized offering. 1 - http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/sticker-shock-why-are-glasses-so-expensive-4/ http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/sticker-shock-why-are-glasses-...
  - jfoster 10y ago

coldcode 10y ago

In a long enough timeframe, most of our jobs will become obsolete; the question is how long? As a programmer I am not worried, as AI isn't really smart enough to interpret the crap I am asked to build.

jccooper 10y ago

Barring major infrastructure and cultural changes, or general purpose ambulatory robots, delivery trucks will still need humans on board to handle the delivery (and pickup) part. No self-driving car is delivering to the seventh floor, and I'm certainly not operating the lift gate myself for LTL pallet deliveries. That's a pretty fair part of the commercial fleet, though vehicles with self-mobile cargo (taxis) or dedicated handlers on each end (long haul) are quite amenable to automation.

rch 10y ago
So last-mile service is becoming last-yard service. That's a good way to think of it because these will be subsistence jobs, or slightly below. Employees will no longer need a commercial license, or even a clean driving record.
enraged_camel 10y ago
>>Barring major infrastructure and cultural changes, or general purpose ambulatory robots, delivery trucks will still need humans on board to handle the delivery (and pickup) part. Sure, but those humans won't be needed during the vast majority of the trip. The truck can make a pit stop at a "last mile" facility to pick up the human loaders/unloaders (who can be minimum wage temps).
eksemplar 10y ago
I think we're going to see some innovating in the mailbox and/or the front door as well. I mean who really wants to accept a package when it could be automated.
subhobroto 10y ago
> delivery trucks will still need humans on board to handle the delivery (and pickup) part. No self-driving car is delivering to the seventh floor Good point. Sure, there will be human intervention required for edge cases but it will be humans augmenting technology, not technology augmenting humans in transportation. I expanded in my comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13230336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13230336
the8472 10y ago

wernerb 10y ago

I feel this short (but worthwhile) video explains the problem best. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU

pdkl95 10y ago
I recommend also watching Mark Blyth's brief overview[1] of how this problem has already affected the political landscape over the last several decades. Significant changes need to be made immediately to handle the changes technology is forcing on the economy. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWMmBG3Z4DI#t=792 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWMmBG3Z4DI#t=792

untog 10y ago

There's a fascinating (if strongly worded) article on Recode that touches on this: http://www.recode.net/2016/12/19/13600538/silicon-valley-grow-up-donald-trump-election http://www.recode.net/2016/12/19/13600538/silicon-valley-gro... In short: Silicon Valley is going to drive a lot of job losses in the not too distant future. There's a very real danger that will blow back as mass unemployment drives people to extremes, unless people start thinking very seriously about what this new world is going to look like, and how the vast majority of the country will earn a living.

djsumdog 10y ago
I really hate the idea that everyone needs to work. I get paid a lot as a software engineer to write stuff. Over the years, I've just seen so much money poured into tech that makes people buy more tech or that does nothing but license intellectual property. I quit my job for 11 months in 2015 and flew around the world; backpacking off my savings: http://khanism.org/perspective/minimalism/ http://khanism.org/perspective/minimalism/ It was the happiest time of my life. I'm planning on getting some funding sources for next time (Pateron, grants for OSS projects, etc.) and see if I can make it longer next time. I'd rather just make enough, making content and tech that I like and find useful, supported by peers, than working the the current tech world. Reynolds envisioned a world like this in his book Army of Davids. I think he painted an overly rosy outlook and neglected to realize how difficult it is to start small businesses or how little time people have after their day jobs to work on things. (You can kinda glaze over those things when you're a UT professor).
- untog 10y ago
  The answer doesn't have to be that everyone has a job. It could be universal basic income. It could be any array of things. But the question is, does Patreon, OSS grants and the like scale to the entire population of a country? My instinct is "no". Yet it's likely that a lot of people will be looking for alternative means by which to live life within our lifetimes, and no-one is really looking for broadly applicable answers.
  - 10y ago

georgeecollins 10y ago

This may not be unprecedented, and hence may not be worse overall than other historical changes in employment. Yes, eventually all delivery driving of people and things will be able to be replaced by machines. But it doesn't exist today to do it safely and reliably in all cases. Imagine if the technology did exist today to do safely and reliably in all cases. It would still take a huge capital investment and turnover of equipment to replace or refit all the human driven vehicles. It would be hard to do in a decade. So imagine it takes another five to ten years to drive the cost down and work out the kinks with weather and construction and so on and ten years to do the actual replacing. Keep in mind the existing equipment and labor will get cheaper as it starts to get replaced, slowing the transition. It seems it like the whole transition could take twenty years. So in twenty years a major job category is going to get wiped out. Like lamplighters, stable hands, textile workers etc. The US has had twenty year periods where 10% of the population has quit farming (https://www.census.gov/population/censusdata/table-4.pdf https://www.census.gov/population/censusdata/table-4.pdf). This will be a big change, but it may not be a worse change than some that have happened in the past.

djsumdog 10y ago
I still don't think driverless tech is even there yet. What Uber is doing in San Francisco is a little scary. I'm waiting for the first fatality. Autonomous vehicles will also not solve the transportation problem. A hundred automated trucks still doesn't come anywhere near the efficiency of three freight engines pulling the same load. Even if every car was autonomous on the Interstate, you might get rid of gridlock but you'd still have a lot of people moving very slowly; well under the theoretical maximum capacity for single lane transport. I wrote a post describing this: http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-solve-the-transportation-problem/ http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-sol...
- coredog64 10y ago
  OTR trucking is about speed and flexibility, not cost. I would love to see more freight shipped via train, but at the same time I'm very much liking 2 day Prime delivery.

subhobroto 10y ago

Technical innovation moves and concentrates the savings to the top of the chain. Technical innovation is a capital expenditure that pays off large returns in the long term. Technical innovation permanently removes/drastically minimizes OpEx for those willing to put up with significant capital expenditure (in building the Technology in the first place): but once done, those jobs are gone. It made mining, telephone, retail, manufacturing etc companies drastically minimize their dependence on human labor. These are salaries that will never ever need to be paid that goes directly to the bottomline. Next up is transportation. Most governments dont want to be bothered with transportation and run it inefficiently. New companies are capitalizing on this to establish future oligopolies: https://www.quora.com/What-controls-help-ensure-the-growing-ride-share-companies-dont-eventually-hold-us-ransom-after-public-private-transportation-has-eroded-away https://www.quora.com/What-controls-help-ensure-the-growing-... Sure, there will be human intervention required for edge cases but it will be humans augmenting technology, not technology augmenting humans in transportation. Electric (and autonomous) vehicles are going to be the next PC era that is going to change the world for decades and build the new billionaires.

Eridrus 10y ago
I am curious if anyone has done an analysis to see how much of the capital expenditures going to automation goes to labor vs profits/return on capital. I could definitely see the case that almost none of it is going to labor in the end, but it would be interesting to see a real study.
dao- 10y ago
> These are salaries that will never ever need to be paid that goes directly to the bottomline. This is only true for the first innovators. Competition means that these 'saleries' will just disappear rather than going directly to the bottomline. Exchange value (~ the price) shrinks as you replace human labour, as Karl Marx would already have told you. ;) And that's not even a bad thing. It's good that people don't have to waste their lives in mines etc. The crucial question is how we as a society deal with this.
- intended 10y ago

analog31 10y ago

At the extreme, a drastic decline in incomes, through unemployment or wage reduction, would eliminate the need for trucks altogether, because there would be no money to drive demand for goods.

pier25 10y ago

I'm guessing with the rise of automated jobs there will be a huge rise in electrical and mechanical engineers. After all, someone has to take care of those machines, no?

lotsoflumens 10y ago
I don't think so - the machines will serviced by machines. It's easier to design machines that can be easily maintained by machines than to design machines that can replace humans.

gooseus 10y ago

I see a lot of speculation about how this is going to play out when the robots take our jobs so hey, why not join in right? Holiday week and all. We know what people have done in the past when this sort of thing has happened - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite > The Luddites were a group of English textile workers and self-employed weavers in the 19th century that used the destruction of machinery as a form of protest. I think that once the robots take enough jobs such that the anti-automation movement reaches a critical mass (and it won't take 100% of the jobs to do that, prob not even 50%) then we'll start seeing these sorts of things happen. Sabotage of driverless cars will be trivial to carry out and very expensive to deal with... some forms may not have adequate protection under criminal law yet, which will require cooperation with legislators and law enforcement to address (good luck with that Uber). I'm thinking things like finding and intentionally exploiting environmental cues that driverless cars use to make decisions (releasing plastic bags into intersections?) or else using directed radio interference to prevent them from communicating with homebase to know where to go next. Some of these may be protected already by FCC or EPA or state-level equivalents, but will enforcement be up to the task? Is the FCC prepared to monitor and enforce local signal interference for corporations? Is a $500 littering fine enough to dissuade individuals and groups from continuing in "civil disobedience"? My core point is that if anyone thinks people are going to take this lying down then they don't know human beings. Everyone is only 3 missed meals away from doing "whatever it takes" and that's even less if it's your kid(s) that are missing the meals. If nothing is in place when the layoffs come then it'll take no time for former workers to organize and take matters into their own hands... within that election cycle the organization will be co-opted by some other ideology which conflates their anger at losing their job to automation with race, class, political affiliation, etc. /speculation

selimthegrim 10y ago

The report also comes out against UBI.

Deckard256 10y ago

I've worked for a medical laboratory as a courier for eleven years. I don't think all of these jobs will be completely wiped out, for several reasons hit on by people in this thread. Many of the things I do on a daily basis can be automated, (I know because I've been able to automate parts of my job), but other parts will prove to be such a high bar, it will be twenty years before they will be cost effective and/or the technology is created. I worry more about low cost, easy to use scanning technologies displacing my job more than I do automated vehicles, at least in the near term. Retraining those of us who want it really wouldn't be as daunting a task as it sounds. I've been able to listen to thousands of hours of audio while I drive, both audio books and university classes, and I encourage my coworkers to do the same. Most of us understand that this line of work will be disrupted at some point. Places like Uber will lead the front of the change. Business like where I am at, where I handle hazardous materials, and places like ups, which have unions blocking automation, will take quite a bit longer in switching over to autonomous vehicles.

amelius 10y ago

If only AI could wipe out the advertisement industry first ...

Jam-B 10y ago

Duh.