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No robot or AI can deal with the dispatchers, lumpers and 95% of the loading/unloading sites. Ever! Humans can barely handle it.

FLUX-YOU 8y ago
So what? AI only being useful on highways is still useful -- if not still far off. Off-ramp the AI trucks into a huge ass parking lot where a human does the last mile(s).
- PedroBatista 8y ago
  Fair point, but most of the time that last mile is a very long mile ( double digits ) and includes many hours of waiting to get loaded/unloaded which can also be just a few minutes and once they're done they want you out of their property ASAP. Driving on the highway is not the only significant part of the job, far from it and I suspect some people are very enamoured by their dreams/greed mixed with the holy tech, just like the pneumatic high-speed trains from the 50s/60s, then maglev, now hyperloop. Efficiency gains on the existing tech + infrastructure will always win over revolutionary new tech.
  - lopmotr 8y ago
    > Efficiency gains on the existing tech + infrastructure will always win over revolutionary new tech. That's just a gross exaggeration. Trains and cars were already new tech compared to horses, nuclear power vs coal power, diesel vs steam, steamships vs sailing ships, transistors vs vacuum tubes. Come on, history is full of revolutionary new tech surpassing incrementally improved old tech. It's unlikely that we're now at the end of the history of technology.
  - macintux 8y ago
    > and includes many hours of waiting to get loaded/unloaded which can also be just a few minutes and once they're done they want you out of their property ASAP. If drivers are only responsible for the last mile(s) it’s quite possible the job changes from “drive one truck, sit and wait for it to be unloaded, leave” to “pick up the truck, drive it to the destination, go pick up another truck”
  - mnm1 8y ago
    Since the last mile is still less than a hundred miles, however, it changes the job immensely from a long distance one to a local one that more people may want to put up with. Assuming the technology actually develops enough to be adopted, of course.
lopmotr 8y ago
AI has superhuman abilities at specific tasks and sub-human at others, so just because it's hard for a human doesn't say much about how AI could cope. What is it about those aspects of the job that you think makes it impossible for AI? For perspective, 20 years ago, what would have been your opinion about bipedal robots walking on rough terrain, self driving cars, and classifying objects in realtime from a video stream? Would you have said "Yea, those things might happen, but certainly not parking a truck." What other tasks do you currently think might be possible with AI in future but we haven't achieved yet? Tasks of similar difficulty to the parts of truck driving you mentioned.

FLUX-YOU 8y ago

So what? AI only being useful on highways is still useful -- if not still far off. Off-ramp the AI trucks into a huge ass parking lot where a human does the last mile(s).

PedroBatista 8y ago
Fair point, but most of the time that last mile is a very long mile ( double digits ) and includes many hours of waiting to get loaded/unloaded which can also be just a few minutes and once they're done they want you out of their property ASAP. Driving on the highway is not the only significant part of the job, far from it and I suspect some people are very enamoured by their dreams/greed mixed with the holy tech, just like the pneumatic high-speed trains from the 50s/60s, then maglev, now hyperloop. Efficiency gains on the existing tech + infrastructure will always win over revolutionary new tech.
- lopmotr 8y ago
  > Efficiency gains on the existing tech + infrastructure will always win over revolutionary new tech. That's just a gross exaggeration. Trains and cars were already new tech compared to horses, nuclear power vs coal power, diesel vs steam, steamships vs sailing ships, transistors vs vacuum tubes. Come on, history is full of revolutionary new tech surpassing incrementally improved old tech. It's unlikely that we're now at the end of the history of technology.
- macintux 8y ago
  > and includes many hours of waiting to get loaded/unloaded which can also be just a few minutes and once they're done they want you out of their property ASAP. If drivers are only responsible for the last mile(s) it’s quite possible the job changes from “drive one truck, sit and wait for it to be unloaded, leave” to “pick up the truck, drive it to the destination, go pick up another truck”
- mnm1 8y ago
  Since the last mile is still less than a hundred miles, however, it changes the job immensely from a long distance one to a local one that more people may want to put up with. Assuming the technology actually develops enough to be adopted, of course.

lopmotr 8y ago

AI has superhuman abilities at specific tasks and sub-human at others, so just because it's hard for a human doesn't say much about how AI could cope. What is it about those aspects of the job that you think makes it impossible for AI? For perspective, 20 years ago, what would have been your opinion about bipedal robots walking on rough terrain, self driving cars, and classifying objects in realtime from a video stream? Would you have said "Yea, those things might happen, but certainly not parking a truck." What other tasks do you currently think might be possible with AI in future but we haven't achieved yet? Tasks of similar difficulty to the parts of truck driving you mentioned.