5 ms·

Basically, these drivers get first seat tickets to watching their jobs slowly being taken away from them by machines.

by jotm 12y ago

gambiting 12y ago
Can't the same thing be said about pilots though? They spend something like 1% of the total flight time actually controlling the plane, everything else is automated. Yet we can't actually get rid of them,because you always need to have someone who knows what to do in case of an emergency. I imagine it will be the same with truck drivers.
- msandford 12y ago
  Yeah, it's just a lot worse in the case of a truck than a plane. In a plane for 99% of the flight you've got MINUTES to deal with errors and avert a crash, since you're several miles up in the air. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadstick_landing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadstick_landing When you're in a truck everything seems to be OK until some kind of non-obvious corner case comes up and BOOM! "you" (the truck) just crashed into a car and killed a family. Not a job I'd want since you probably have all the liability for the problems and none of the time to react that you'd want. Watching a truck drive itself -- if you're on call to jump in and try and avert a disaster -- is probably more stressful than just driving it yourself.
- dEnigma 12y ago
  A truck could just stop at the shoulder when something goes wrong and wait for assistance, while a plane still has to land, which is anything but easy, depending on the circumstances.
  - gambiting 12y ago
    Like the other person pointed out - if you have a problem with a plane and the autopilot disengages, a pilot has minutes(sometimes several) to figure out what is going on and land the plane safely. If an automated truck is driving on a highway and one of the tyres blows out, the time between autopilot disengaging and the truck moving into opposite lane and colliding with someone head-on is measured in seconds. Obviously, there is no guarantee that a human driver would handle it better, but it's a real problem with automated cars.
    - jotm 12y ago
      Wait, but with the right sensors, a computer could respond way faster and better than a human, provided it has the right programming on what to do in specific conditions. That data could be aggregated from crash tests and actual drivers around the world.
      - gambiting 12y ago
        >>provided it has the right programming on what to do in specific conditions That's my exact point - you can't hard code in every single possible problem. And in case autopilot doesn't have sufficient data or programming to handle the situation it has no other choice but relinquish control to the driver, at a moments notice. Of course it could always try breaking with full force, but a) breaks might be damaged b) breaking is actually a bad idea, if any of the wheels are on a soft surface(like in my example, after a tyre blowout the truck has moved closed enough to the edge that wheels on one side are now on grass - applying maximum breaking force in this situation will actually tip over the truck, the correct solution is to keep going until the truck slows down by itself). The truck might not know what surface it's on or where it's going(say a bird hit the laser sensor on top), so the autopilot would fail spectacularly in this situation, which would not be very difficult for an experienced driver to handle.
        Dylan16807 12y ago
        >The truck might not know what surface it's on The truck should have a notably better feel for the surface than a human. >say a bird hit the laser sensor on top Say a bird hits the human driver in the face?
    - pjc50 12y ago
      no guarantee that a human driver would handle it better Assuming the control system is smart enough to cope with changes in control authority, it's got to be better - it has much faster reactions and direct access to the tyre pressure data. A system where the autopilot disengages and gives up control without having confirmation that the human has taken over (by giving a control input) is an obvious danger though.
- jotm 12y ago
  I've never considered that, I thought they're there to please the government/bureaucracy (need to have a human, etc.). And judging by some of the latest plane crashes, a complete autopilot may not be that bad of an idea. In case of trucks, I've always liked the idea of a convoy with one manned truck and several automated drones - seems like a good compromise.
  - gambiting 12y ago
    >> And judging by some of the latest plane crashes, a complete autopilot may not be that bad of an idea Well no - the problem with problems is that you can never predict all of them, and complete autopilot would either need to exhibit strong AI to deal with all(not possible right now) or have them all coded in(also not possible). Not to mention that complete power loss can, and has happened before - even if the steering still has power, without a computer running it won't do much good without someone who can move the stick. Or look at the landing on the Hudson River - would any computer ever decide to try it? I think the answer is no. If we had a ridiculously good AI, I think it would decide to crash land the plane somewhere with no people. River has people. There were bridges in the way. AI might not be 100% capable of gliding the plane with no engine trust and broken sensors -it would have simply not tried that landing. That plane only landed safely because the captain had experience with gliders and knew what to do.
    - Dylan16807 12y ago
      The perfect is the enemy of the good. It's not like all pilots without that much glider experience are 'unsafe' because they can't recover in that extremely particular set of circumstances. Even if we ignore the possibility of remote control, you don't need an autopilot that's better in every way than every existing pilot. You just need one that's better than the average pilot.
      - gambiting 12y ago
        That is just deeply untrue. Even if automatic pilots had statistically less accidents than real ones, any accident caused by machine error would be greatly publicized, and manufacturer of the autopilot would have to pay $$$ in damages. Let's use a different argument, just for the sake of it. Let's assume there exists a medical device, which never fails on its own, but due to operator errors 1/10000 patients who use this machine die. Now someone makes a fully automated machine,but due to problems with programming it kills 1/100000 patients it treats(completely on random). Even though it's 10x better than your average operator, such machine would be banned from the market quicker than you can say "litigation". In our society human errors are much more easily forgiven than computer errors, because everyone believes that they could have been prevented. And therefore, a truck autopilot wouldn't need to be just better than your average driver - it would need to be absolutely perfect. And I don't think we are ready for perfect yet.
- frenchman_in_ny 12y ago
  This is old trope, and wrong. Small reminder that 100% of takeoffs and a vast majority of landings are flown by hand. That "1% of the total flight time" may be hand-flying the plane (ie, hands on stick and throttle), but all the flying that you're discounting in your 99% is still something that the pilot needs to handle. They need to manage the automation, the FMS, ATC, etc. Patrick Smith (ask the pilot) has a number of good criticisms [0][1] of this "1%" trope. [0]http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/10/opinion/why-pilots-still-matter.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/10/opinion/why-pilots-still-m... [1]http://www.askthepilot.com/pilotless-planes/ http://www.askthepilot.com/pilotless-planes/
  - gambiting 12y ago
    Thanks, this is genuinely very informative, I had no idea.
johnreddington 12y ago
If you think the only role of a truck driver is to steer and press the pedals you are terribly mistaken. That is the easy part to automate.
- jchendy 12y ago
  What's the hard part?
  - masklinn 12y ago
    Navigating the endpoint/dock/whatever.
    - michaelbuckbee 12y ago
      This makes me think that we'll end up with truck drivers who are more like tugboat captains. They know their distribution center and as automated trucks come in and park on the edge, they then do the fiddly work of getting it lined up at the right time to the right loading bay.
    - tombrossman 12y ago
      I disagree. That could be automated exactly like 'self-parking cars' which has been a feature in some luxury cars for a while now. The most challenging part mentally is accurate trip planning. Drivers try to predict exactly when to move to ensure an on-time delivery and have too many variables to do this with high accuracy. Then they will typically falsify logs and run illegally to make the logs match the date and time stamped documentation (toll reciepts, times stamped on delivery reciepts, etc). I think that you'll find large trucking companies are happy to keep using cheap expendable labor, who will willingly bend the rules, as this gives the companies the plausible deniability they want.
- Shivetya 12y ago
  for many package companies, think UPS/FedEx the automation of the long haul combined with automated yard facilities will certain come to bear. The loading and unloading occurs once the trailer is parked and that parking and moving to staging can be automated as well; providing the union agrees. however many truck drivers usually are tasked with loading and unloading their trailers, most likely to occur when flat beds are picking up special cargo. Movers also tend to be part of the work crew as well. More than one friend has ventured in trucking only to return when they realized the amount of hard labor, if not dangerous labor they faced.
sbarre 12y ago
Bah.. re-train them into knowledge workers while they sit there.. Provide them with a wireless workstation and they can do all kinds of other interesting work for the company while they sit there for hours on end.. Better than staring at the road..
- pavel_lishin 12y ago
  Speaking as someone who is sometimes on that road in a vehicle that is much smaller than a truck, I would strongly prefer that they keep staring at that road, and everything else on it.
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    I'm in such a vehicle too, and I think you're crazy to want that. If they spend 6 hours unnecessarily staring at the road while autopilot is on, they're not going to be anywhere near peak driving condition when they do take over.
- jotm 12y ago
  Heh, yeah they could definitely learn some other profession while monitoring the truck. But it would probably be against the rules or downright illegal...
- enraged_camel 12y ago
  Brilliant idea! Just give them one of these and a laptop and let them learn some coding on Codecademy while on the road: http://www.amazon.com/AutoExec-Wheelmate-Steering-Attachable-Surface/dp/B00E1D1GY6/ http://www.amazon.com/AutoExec-Wheelmate-Steering-Attachable...
pjc50 12y ago
In terms of what order to automate things away, truck driving isn't quite as bad as fruit picking or the more dangerous bits of the construction industry, but it's demanding, lonely, and unhealthy. I don't know how the US regulates awakeness, but in the EU there are strict limits on how long truck drivers can be on shift for. If they can sleep in the middle long-distance sections and drive the narrower local roads at the end, that reduces the need for sleep stops. Or maybe the secret is that it's being remote controlled by players of the inexplicably popular Euro Truck Simulator.
- jotm 12y ago
  | Or maybe the secret is that it's being remote controlled by players of the inexplicably popular Euro Truck Simulator. That would explain the mystery of titles like Forklift Simulator, Firetruck Simulator, Farming Simulator, Train Simulator and Car Mechanic Simulator :-)
  - lfowles 12y ago
    Surgeon Simulator and Goat Simulator to extend this into the ridiculous :)
- crymer11 12y ago
  Maximum of 11 hours driving after 10 consecutive hours off-duty, and no driving after 14 hours of coming on duty.
- ams6110 12y ago
  it's demanding, lonely, and unhealthy That's one point of view. Some people love it.

Basically, these drivers get first seat tickets to watching their jobs slowly being taken away from them by machines.

by jotm 12y ago

Basically, these drivers get first seat tickets to watching their jobs slowly being taken away from them by machines.

Can't the same thing be said about pilots though? They spend something like 1% of the total flight time actually controlling the plane, everything else is automated. Yet we can't actually get rid of them,because you always need to have someone who knows what to do in case of an emergency. I imagine it will be the same with truck drivers.

msandford 12y ago
Yeah, it's just a lot worse in the case of a truck than a plane. In a plane for 99% of the flight you've got MINUTES to deal with errors and avert a crash, since you're several miles up in the air. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadstick_landing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadstick_landing When you're in a truck everything seems to be OK until some kind of non-obvious corner case comes up and BOOM! "you" (the truck) just crashed into a car and killed a family. Not a job I'd want since you probably have all the liability for the problems and none of the time to react that you'd want. Watching a truck drive itself -- if you're on call to jump in and try and avert a disaster -- is probably more stressful than just driving it yourself.
dEnigma 12y ago
A truck could just stop at the shoulder when something goes wrong and wait for assistance, while a plane still has to land, which is anything but easy, depending on the circumstances.
- gambiting 12y ago
  Like the other person pointed out - if you have a problem with a plane and the autopilot disengages, a pilot has minutes(sometimes several) to figure out what is going on and land the plane safely. If an automated truck is driving on a highway and one of the tyres blows out, the time between autopilot disengaging and the truck moving into opposite lane and colliding with someone head-on is measured in seconds. Obviously, there is no guarantee that a human driver would handle it better, but it's a real problem with automated cars.
  - jotm 12y ago
    Wait, but with the right sensors, a computer could respond way faster and better than a human, provided it has the right programming on what to do in specific conditions. That data could be aggregated from crash tests and actual drivers around the world.
    - gambiting 12y ago
      >>provided it has the right programming on what to do in specific conditions That's my exact point - you can't hard code in every single possible problem. And in case autopilot doesn't have sufficient data or programming to handle the situation it has no other choice but relinquish control to the driver, at a moments notice. Of course it could always try breaking with full force, but a) breaks might be damaged b) breaking is actually a bad idea, if any of the wheels are on a soft surface(like in my example, after a tyre blowout the truck has moved closed enough to the edge that wheels on one side are now on grass - applying maximum breaking force in this situation will actually tip over the truck, the correct solution is to keep going until the truck slows down by itself). The truck might not know what surface it's on or where it's going(say a bird hit the laser sensor on top), so the autopilot would fail spectacularly in this situation, which would not be very difficult for an experienced driver to handle.
      - Dylan16807 12y ago
        >The truck might not know what surface it's on The truck should have a notably better feel for the surface than a human. >say a bird hit the laser sensor on top Say a bird hits the human driver in the face?
  - pjc50 12y ago
    no guarantee that a human driver would handle it better Assuming the control system is smart enough to cope with changes in control authority, it's got to be better - it has much faster reactions and direct access to the tyre pressure data. A system where the autopilot disengages and gives up control without having confirmation that the human has taken over (by giving a control input) is an obvious danger though.
jotm 12y ago
I've never considered that, I thought they're there to please the government/bureaucracy (need to have a human, etc.). And judging by some of the latest plane crashes, a complete autopilot may not be that bad of an idea. In case of trucks, I've always liked the idea of a convoy with one manned truck and several automated drones - seems like a good compromise.
- gambiting 12y ago
  >> And judging by some of the latest plane crashes, a complete autopilot may not be that bad of an idea Well no - the problem with problems is that you can never predict all of them, and complete autopilot would either need to exhibit strong AI to deal with all(not possible right now) or have them all coded in(also not possible). Not to mention that complete power loss can, and has happened before - even if the steering still has power, without a computer running it won't do much good without someone who can move the stick. Or look at the landing on the Hudson River - would any computer ever decide to try it? I think the answer is no. If we had a ridiculously good AI, I think it would decide to crash land the plane somewhere with no people. River has people. There were bridges in the way. AI might not be 100% capable of gliding the plane with no engine trust and broken sensors -it would have simply not tried that landing. That plane only landed safely because the captain had experience with gliders and knew what to do.
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    The perfect is the enemy of the good. It's not like all pilots without that much glider experience are 'unsafe' because they can't recover in that extremely particular set of circumstances. Even if we ignore the possibility of remote control, you don't need an autopilot that's better in every way than every existing pilot. You just need one that's better than the average pilot.
    - gambiting 12y ago
      That is just deeply untrue. Even if automatic pilots had statistically less accidents than real ones, any accident caused by machine error would be greatly publicized, and manufacturer of the autopilot would have to pay $$$ in damages. Let's use a different argument, just for the sake of it. Let's assume there exists a medical device, which never fails on its own, but due to operator errors 1/10000 patients who use this machine die. Now someone makes a fully automated machine,but due to problems with programming it kills 1/100000 patients it treats(completely on random). Even though it's 10x better than your average operator, such machine would be banned from the market quicker than you can say "litigation". In our society human errors are much more easily forgiven than computer errors, because everyone believes that they could have been prevented. And therefore, a truck autopilot wouldn't need to be just better than your average driver - it would need to be absolutely perfect. And I don't think we are ready for perfect yet.
frenchman_in_ny 12y ago
This is old trope, and wrong. Small reminder that 100% of takeoffs and a vast majority of landings are flown by hand. That "1% of the total flight time" may be hand-flying the plane (ie, hands on stick and throttle), but all the flying that you're discounting in your 99% is still something that the pilot needs to handle. They need to manage the automation, the FMS, ATC, etc. Patrick Smith (ask the pilot) has a number of good criticisms [0][1] of this "1%" trope. [0]http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/10/opinion/why-pilots-still-matter.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/10/opinion/why-pilots-still-m... [1]http://www.askthepilot.com/pilotless-planes/ http://www.askthepilot.com/pilotless-planes/
- gambiting 12y ago
  Thanks, this is genuinely very informative, I had no idea.

johnreddington 12y ago

If you think the only role of a truck driver is to steer and press the pedals you are terribly mistaken. That is the easy part to automate.

jchendy 12y ago
What's the hard part?
- masklinn 12y ago
  Navigating the endpoint/dock/whatever.
  - michaelbuckbee 12y ago
    This makes me think that we'll end up with truck drivers who are more like tugboat captains. They know their distribution center and as automated trucks come in and park on the edge, they then do the fiddly work of getting it lined up at the right time to the right loading bay.
  - tombrossman 12y ago
    I disagree. That could be automated exactly like 'self-parking cars' which has been a feature in some luxury cars for a while now. The most challenging part mentally is accurate trip planning. Drivers try to predict exactly when to move to ensure an on-time delivery and have too many variables to do this with high accuracy. Then they will typically falsify logs and run illegally to make the logs match the date and time stamped documentation (toll reciepts, times stamped on delivery reciepts, etc). I think that you'll find large trucking companies are happy to keep using cheap expendable labor, who will willingly bend the rules, as this gives the companies the plausible deniability they want.
Shivetya 12y ago
for many package companies, think UPS/FedEx the automation of the long haul combined with automated yard facilities will certain come to bear. The loading and unloading occurs once the trailer is parked and that parking and moving to staging can be automated as well; providing the union agrees. however many truck drivers usually are tasked with loading and unloading their trailers, most likely to occur when flat beds are picking up special cargo. Movers also tend to be part of the work crew as well. More than one friend has ventured in trucking only to return when they realized the amount of hard labor, if not dangerous labor they faced.

sbarre 12y ago

Bah.. re-train them into knowledge workers while they sit there.. Provide them with a wireless workstation and they can do all kinds of other interesting work for the company while they sit there for hours on end.. Better than staring at the road..

pavel_lishin 12y ago
Speaking as someone who is sometimes on that road in a vehicle that is much smaller than a truck, I would strongly prefer that they keep staring at that road, and everything else on it.
- Dylan16807 12y ago
  I'm in such a vehicle too, and I think you're crazy to want that. If they spend 6 hours unnecessarily staring at the road while autopilot is on, they're not going to be anywhere near peak driving condition when they do take over.
jotm 12y ago
Heh, yeah they could definitely learn some other profession while monitoring the truck. But it would probably be against the rules or downright illegal...
enraged_camel 12y ago
Brilliant idea! Just give them one of these and a laptop and let them learn some coding on Codecademy while on the road: http://www.amazon.com/AutoExec-Wheelmate-Steering-Attachable-Surface/dp/B00E1D1GY6/ http://www.amazon.com/AutoExec-Wheelmate-Steering-Attachable...

pjc50 12y ago

In terms of what order to automate things away, truck driving isn't quite as bad as fruit picking or the more dangerous bits of the construction industry, but it's demanding, lonely, and unhealthy. I don't know how the US regulates awakeness, but in the EU there are strict limits on how long truck drivers can be on shift for. If they can sleep in the middle long-distance sections and drive the narrower local roads at the end, that reduces the need for sleep stops. Or maybe the secret is that it's being remote controlled by players of the inexplicably popular Euro Truck Simulator.

jotm 12y ago
| Or maybe the secret is that it's being remote controlled by players of the inexplicably popular Euro Truck Simulator. That would explain the mystery of titles like Forklift Simulator, Firetruck Simulator, Farming Simulator, Train Simulator and Car Mechanic Simulator :-)
- lfowles 12y ago
  Surgeon Simulator and Goat Simulator to extend this into the ridiculous :)
crymer11 12y ago
Maximum of 11 hours driving after 10 consecutive hours off-duty, and no driving after 14 hours of coming on duty.
ams6110 12y ago
it's demanding, lonely, and unhealthy That's one point of view. Some people love it.