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The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

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Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

#371

Post by kmkemp »

hluska wrote: post #266
anoonmoose wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any evidence that a technology with billions of dollars in potential would not be used if it was only 99.99% ready? I feel like lots of dangerous stuff has been deployed when it was nowhere near 99% in the past, and I'm not sure why this technology would be any different. People talk about it like it's a lot different, but how safe are regular cars? Nuclear power? Coal power? Honestly I don't even know what…

Consider the politics of wiping out the biggest employer in 29/50 states. Can you imagine the backlash that even one death would cause?

Company interests generally outweigh individual interests in America. Besides, we live in a global economy, so putting off technology that is profitable (by a huge margin) today only ensures more American job losses as companies can't compete with foreign competitors. I predict that the driverless car revolution, whenever it happens, will be the issue that pushes Universal Basic Income to the forefront of the political landscape.

Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

#372

Post by visakanv »

CaptSpify wrote: post #317
emp_zealoth wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's all fine when a lorry rear ends and pancakes a car because the driver fell asleep?

Nobody is saying this is logical. The point is that people will use this as a hyped-up political foothold to point out why automated drivers are "unsafe" as well as "taking our jobs".

Fun fact: automated elevators were considered to be "unsafe" and "taking our jobs", too. Somehow we got past that one!

Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

#373

Post by pm24601 »

_nickwhite wrote: post #322

Last week, my brother (27) was ran over and killed in a truck stop parking lot by a distracted truck driver. I wholeheartedly embrace the prospect of automating trucks, as a sensor would have prevented this.

First of all I am sorry for your loss. I formed a group within my own city to prevent traffic deaths from happening here.

I agree with you; drivers need more sensors to alert them and stop them from killing people. However, computers can still fail - we need those sensors and maybe automatic brake application to prevent this sort of tragedy - I doubt if we want to trust a computer entirely for this sort of thing.

Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

#374

Post by pinaceae »

Why not operate trucks like drones?

Why does the driver need to sit in the vehicle all the time? Have rotating drivers, no need for rest times of the machine enforced by the limitations of the human body operating it.

You can then gradually phase in auto-pilot modes on highways, so that one operator is responsible for multiple vehicles. Already happening in combat drone space.

As they're not transporting passengers it is an easier sell.

Semi-autonomous drones with remote pilots/drivers/captains should change the game in trucking, shipping and freight trains.

Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

#375

Post by visakanv »

gambiting wrote: post #313
CodeCube wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

have you not been following the developments of self driving cars? Like the story of how google cars had problems gauging the intent of bike riders that were themselves stopped to let the car pass ... it looked like they were about to take off, so the car was too conservative and didn't move until the bike changed what they were doing. And then, once that condition was experienced and identified, it was fixed for all…

My point is that all of these are "simple" problems. Oh the truck will identify a plastic bag. Oh the truck will have a cargo manifest and drive accordingly. But these are all new technologies. Our visual recognition libraries are nowhere near ideal. I said this elsewhere but I will say it here too - our best of the best software can't tell a zebra and a sofa in a zebra print apart. I'm pretty sure that all that LIDA…

> I said this elsewhere but I will say it here too - our best of the best software can't tell a zebra and a sofa in a zebra print apart.

Really? I find this surprising. Do you have any links or sources? I'd like to learn more.

Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

#376

Post by perseusprime11 »

ck2 wrote: post #263
perseusprime11 wrote: post #262

We need to create a new highway system for driverless cars/vans/trucks/etc. The current road infrastructure with its potholes, tolls, traffic congestion is not ideal. They need to conceive something similar to HOV lanes in order for this to move forward.

lol - like politicians give a damn about infrastructure for living human beings that suffer every day on broken roads and dangerous bridges they'll get right on that

How did we ever get to HOV lanes?

Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

#377

Post by [deleted] »

illumin8 wrote: post #289
verytrivial wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And then when you get to your destination, manoeuvring a 50' trailer is no easy task, even for a trained driver like my dad. I wonder if there will be a more specialised role for human drivers here akin to pilots in ports. Companies at the scale able to invest in the tech might have the trucks arrive at a queue near regional hubs and have wet-ware do the 10 minutes of fiddly driving after clearing off the Smart car…

The article says so. The plan is to have human drivers in each city drive the "last mile" from the interstate freeway exit to the destination. The current autonomous technology is only effective on freeways, so having human drivers drop the truck off at the interstate, and pick it up again solves the temporary problem of not having 100% effective automation of city driving/trailer parking.

[deleted]

Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

#378

Post by 37 »

I thought driverless trucks were already a thing.

From [1]:

>Driverless trucks aren’t new to the resource industry. Mining giants Rio Tinto Group and BHP Billiton Ltd. use them at many of their operations and oilsands producers see driverless trucks as an obvious way to boost productivity.

I can definitely see it expanding, as automation has a tendency to do, and the idea that no technology will automate away more jobs is certainly interesting.

[1] http://business.financialpost.com/news/energy/how-canadas-oi...

Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

#379

Post by notahacker »

ChartsNGraffs wrote: post #113
duck wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true, but I guess my argument is that the author is wrong in terms of this being a devastating thing to our current workforce.

If you were 55+ with your only qualification being that you could drive a truck and that niche was automated away, this would absolutely be devastating to you.

To be honest, if I'm 55+, I'm probably not too worried that self driving trucks without attendant drivers might be permitted on some major trunk routes a few years after my retirement

Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

#380

Post by dspillett »

emp_zealoth wrote: post #250
mattlutze wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public and political perception need to consider autonomous commercial trucking to be safe, rather than safer. "Safer than human drivers" all too easily becomes "we can't control when these robot trucks my crash into a mother driving her kids to school," when you put it into the political regulation arena.

So it's all fine when a lorry rear ends and pancakes a car because the driver fell asleep?

No, but at least from the PoV of public perception the situation is easier to deal with in a way that allays fear.

In your example that one drive is taken off the road. That drive is not a problem, and people assume that the remaining drivers are, for the most part, fine and unlikely to make the same mistake.

In the automated truck example you can't take that one driver off the road because barring equipment failure they are all the same driver and just as likely to make the same mistake.

If one human driver kills in such a manner, people will distrust that one human driver (or at worst that one trucking company, if bad training or other compliance issues are suspected), if one automated truck kills in such a manner people will distrust all automated trucks.

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