4 ms·

This kind of reaction is totally baffling for me. I’ve done quite a bit of inventory manual work during college/university Holliday’s and even with such a limi

This kind of reaction is totally baffling for me. I’ve done quite a bit of inventory manual work during college/university Holliday’s and even with such a limited experience I can’t even begin to explain how wrong you are because it would go on for hours. In a neighbor country wich is pretty much considered as a leader in industrial automation (Germany) it’s almost mandatory for engineers to experience months of low level jobs to get a grasp of what practical real world problems are when working. This is pure Silicon Valley overconfidence. Software "move fast and break things" approach really don’t translate well for hardware. And in this case I think Uber will learn this lesson the hard way.

tjoff 9y ago
Could you at least try to make your point? All I said was that the act of loading/unloading etc. would be done by different people than the truck driver. Also, we already have semi-automated warehouses, it is not unimaginable that the drones driving around with boxes could be adapted to able to help load a truck. Probably with the help of another machine. Not saying that this process needs to be void of any human at all - just that the truck driver wouldn't be part of it. I really didn't say that the inventory work would just disappear - it would just be moved from the truck driver.
- Twisell 9y ago
  Well first research field of automated warehouse is hudge and so it’s very reductive to think that what happens after the truck is the easiest part. Secondly truck driver usually are in charge of the final delivery to shop or customer and have to deliver good to buildings that are not by any mean standardized. Having a human on board that know how to operate the truck and how to properly unload it is a feature that will probably be missed out. As It would be pretty unwise IMHO to rely on external people to "not fuck up" when handling heavy objects around a costly automated truck. So maybe I am totally wrong, but if we concentrate our current R&D on building expensive automated truck so that we can reduce cost by firing driver... Instead of focusing our R&D on producing more economic and ecological truck and alternative transportation... we might as well be fucked up as a specie.
  - tjoff 9y ago
    Well, obviously the truck driver won't be in charge of the final delivery, and if the buildings are not by any mean standardized then don't use an automated truck or do standardize that location. Simple as that. > As It would be pretty unwise IMHO to rely on external people to "not fuck up" when handling heavy objects around a costly automated truck. I agree that this will be an issue and the people on the ground would need to be educated. But I hope you don't think this problem is unsolvable in practice. We somehow do it for aircrafts (I don't think the pilot does the actual leg work there).
    - Twisell 9y ago
      "standardize that location. Simple as that." Again that’s nor simple neither cost effective by any mean. Your are dealing with a lot of externalities here. Logistics is a chain, you can’t replace a link and expect that the others will magically adapt to the new element. It’s like an API you can’t expect users to be happy if you break all compatibility for the sake of progress. And again for API only software have to be adapted which is far easier than hardware. I don’t doubt than sometimes in the future when all the caveheats will have been addressed and that some standard will have been defined yes you will have automated trucks. But it’s not simple and I don’t see them comming before at least 15 years and in any case after passengers automated cars.
      - tjoff 9y ago
        If the economics don't work out, don't do it. This won't be an over night transformation but rather decades. You start where the circumstances are beneficial. Perhaps the first to adopt this would be postal services and large stores with many outlets throughout a country with their own trucks that do the same route every day. They have control over each destination and it would most likely be easier work alongside existing logistics and everything is kept within the same company.
        Twisell 9y ago
        On that we agree I was just pointing out that it’s not as simple as you initialy thought. And sorry if I’ve being boring it’s a deformation from Geography my first scholarship. Geographers tends to focus on systemic interaction rather than on individual components.

tjoff 9y ago

Could you at least try to make your point? All I said was that the act of loading/unloading etc. would be done by different people than the truck driver. Also, we already have semi-automated warehouses, it is not unimaginable that the drones driving around with boxes could be adapted to able to help load a truck. Probably with the help of another machine. Not saying that this process needs to be void of any human at all - just that the truck driver wouldn't be part of it. I really didn't say that the inventory work would just disappear - it would just be moved from the truck driver.

Twisell 9y ago
Well first research field of automated warehouse is hudge and so it’s very reductive to think that what happens after the truck is the easiest part. Secondly truck driver usually are in charge of the final delivery to shop or customer and have to deliver good to buildings that are not by any mean standardized. Having a human on board that know how to operate the truck and how to properly unload it is a feature that will probably be missed out. As It would be pretty unwise IMHO to rely on external people to "not fuck up" when handling heavy objects around a costly automated truck. So maybe I am totally wrong, but if we concentrate our current R&D on building expensive automated truck so that we can reduce cost by firing driver... Instead of focusing our R&D on producing more economic and ecological truck and alternative transportation... we might as well be fucked up as a specie.
- tjoff 9y ago
  Well, obviously the truck driver won't be in charge of the final delivery, and if the buildings are not by any mean standardized then don't use an automated truck or do standardize that location. Simple as that. > As It would be pretty unwise IMHO to rely on external people to "not fuck up" when handling heavy objects around a costly automated truck. I agree that this will be an issue and the people on the ground would need to be educated. But I hope you don't think this problem is unsolvable in practice. We somehow do it for aircrafts (I don't think the pilot does the actual leg work there).
  - Twisell 9y ago
    "standardize that location. Simple as that." Again that’s nor simple neither cost effective by any mean. Your are dealing with a lot of externalities here. Logistics is a chain, you can’t replace a link and expect that the others will magically adapt to the new element. It’s like an API you can’t expect users to be happy if you break all compatibility for the sake of progress. And again for API only software have to be adapted which is far easier than hardware. I don’t doubt than sometimes in the future when all the caveheats will have been addressed and that some standard will have been defined yes you will have automated trucks. But it’s not simple and I don’t see them comming before at least 15 years and in any case after passengers automated cars.
    - tjoff 9y ago
      If the economics don't work out, don't do it. This won't be an over night transformation but rather decades. You start where the circumstances are beneficial. Perhaps the first to adopt this would be postal services and large stores with many outlets throughout a country with their own trucks that do the same route every day. They have control over each destination and it would most likely be easier work alongside existing logistics and everything is kept within the same company.
      - Twisell 9y ago
        On that we agree I was just pointing out that it’s not as simple as you initialy thought. And sorry if I’ve being boring it’s a deformation from Geography my first scholarship. Geographers tends to focus on systemic interaction rather than on individual components.