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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 a

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.
- dragonwriter 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. But we're well past the first fatality in a human-driven Uber.
  - wyldfire 10y ago
    I think you fail to understand the depths of human fears regarding technology. Computer-driven automobiles are billed as a safer alternative. But if they yield even a small number of fatalities, it will likely be seen as a huge failure.
    - athenot 10y ago
      The fears are not of technology but of loss of control. What you describe is similar to how some are afaid of flying in an airplane yet readidy drive a car, despite the latter having several orders of magnitude more probability for death.
      - iamatworknow 10y ago
        Exactly. There are a lot of people who simply won't trust a "robot" to drive for them, regardless of their safety record.
        mr_overalls 10y ago
        You'd be surprised what people can reconsider when there's a financial incentive. Drastically higher insurance costs for human drivers will likely be one such incentive.
        iamatworknow 10y ago
        There are plenty of people who will just fail to see the financial incentive, even after it's become obvious to people like you and I. Unless the cost becomes truly debilitating (and, granted, at some point it probably will) they won't change. Don't underestimate how stubborn people can be, especially if they're Americans who feel their freedom is being threatened.
- jcfrei 10y ago
  Well obviously trucks or buses can't compare on a per lane basis. But that's not a fair comparison. There's a street to almost every house but not a rail road track. If the railway tracks were as dense as streets you'd end up with much of the same problems and restrictions. You'll always need a truck of some sort to distribute goods from a railway station to a house. And I doubt you will come out on top if you have the added costs and time of transferring goods from trains to trucks.
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    >And I doubt you will come out on top if you have the added costs and time of transferring goods from trains to trucks. Except we do that for road transport as well, because a van isn't very efficient over long distances, and a lorry can't maneuver easily in many environments.
- imglorp 10y ago
  Of course there will be fatalities from autonomous vehicles. At some point though, maybe right away even, they will be fewer than human drivers, which cause around 30,000/year in the US. Humans fall asleep, get distracted, display poor judgement, chemical abuse, and medical problems. Autonomous will have none of these but might introduce a few new ones.
iamatworknow 10y ago
I think even 20 years is overly optimistic, frankly.

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.
dragonwriter 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. But we're well past the first fatality in a human-driven Uber.
- wyldfire 10y ago
  I think you fail to understand the depths of human fears regarding technology. Computer-driven automobiles are billed as a safer alternative. But if they yield even a small number of fatalities, it will likely be seen as a huge failure.
  - athenot 10y ago
    The fears are not of technology but of loss of control. What you describe is similar to how some are afaid of flying in an airplane yet readidy drive a car, despite the latter having several orders of magnitude more probability for death.
    - iamatworknow 10y ago
      Exactly. There are a lot of people who simply won't trust a "robot" to drive for them, regardless of their safety record.
      - mr_overalls 10y ago
        You'd be surprised what people can reconsider when there's a financial incentive. Drastically higher insurance costs for human drivers will likely be one such incentive.
        iamatworknow 10y ago
        There are plenty of people who will just fail to see the financial incentive, even after it's become obvious to people like you and I. Unless the cost becomes truly debilitating (and, granted, at some point it probably will) they won't change. Don't underestimate how stubborn people can be, especially if they're Americans who feel their freedom is being threatened.
jcfrei 10y ago
Well obviously trucks or buses can't compare on a per lane basis. But that's not a fair comparison. There's a street to almost every house but not a rail road track. If the railway tracks were as dense as streets you'd end up with much of the same problems and restrictions. You'll always need a truck of some sort to distribute goods from a railway station to a house. And I doubt you will come out on top if you have the added costs and time of transferring goods from trains to trucks.
- aninhumer 10y ago
  >And I doubt you will come out on top if you have the added costs and time of transferring goods from trains to trucks. Except we do that for road transport as well, because a van isn't very efficient over long distances, and a lorry can't maneuver easily in many environments.
imglorp 10y ago
Of course there will be fatalities from autonomous vehicles. At some point though, maybe right away even, they will be fewer than human drivers, which cause around 30,000/year in the US. Humans fall asleep, get distracted, display poor judgement, chemical abuse, and medical problems. Autonomous will have none of these but might introduce a few new ones.

iamatworknow 10y ago

I think even 20 years is overly optimistic, frankly.