https://www.jacobinmag.com/2011/12/four-futures/
Take your pick, or interpolate between them.
American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots
11–20 of 170 posts
Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots
#12> 1.8 million American truck drivers ... well-paying working-class jobs Those two items right there are exactly why they are being automated (in addition to additional efficiencies and cost reductions). If companies can eliminate those costs, they will if there's a way to do so. That is the unfortunate reality. What to do about the aftermath that affects actual people and families as pay is reduced or eventually elim…
Our education system needs to adjust to prepare our youth for highly technical jobs. Instead of truck drivers we'll need engineers to build the automation systems and programmers to write the complex software behind it.
Intelligence isn't equally handed out. Especially the analytical kind required of engineers/programmers. Not everyone can do those jobs. As the market price for the truck-driver demographic declines, new sectors will be able to afford to hire them, but they largely won't become engineers.
Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots
#13The other question you need to ask in order to understand this future scenerio:. Shipping costs will significantly decrease, what will consumers and shareholders spend the extra money on? Who knows what they will spend the extra money on, could be healthcare, boats, TVs, whatever. But new jobs will be created in these expanded industries. It really, really bothers me the constant "x technology will drive x people out…
> UBI > sitting around choose one
Can you explain why those are contradictory?
Surely some people will opt to not have a job at all, if they didn't need to worry about maintaining a minimum quality of life and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots
#14> 1.8 million American truck drivers ... well-paying working-class jobs Those two items right there are exactly why they are being automated (in addition to additional efficiencies and cost reductions). If companies can eliminate those costs, they will if there's a way to do so. That is the unfortunate reality. What to do about the aftermath that affects actual people and families as pay is reduced or eventually elim…
Our education system needs to adjust to prepare our youth for highly technical jobs. Instead of truck drivers we'll need engineers to build the automation systems and programmers to write the complex software behind it.
Economically, the main advantage of automating is paying less for the same.
So, if there were the same need for engineers than for truck drivers, even in aggregate, automation would be a lot less compelling.
Putting it more straightforwardly:100 engineers in California can automate several hundred thousands of jobs in the whole country.
Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots
#15I don't know about the US, but here in Australia, truck driving is an "old man's job". The average age of a truck driver here is 47, apparently. Automated trucks probably won't get here in time to dovetail with the natural retirement of these drivers...
Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots
#16Yeah, I've been thinking lately as well, why are we doing that? I mean as a society? (I recall a phrase said by someone, that we are consciously building a future nobody wants to live in.) What exactly are we getting from that?
Ultra-rich, namely car companies owners and shareholders, will become even more rich. (Why are they doing it, by the way, don't they have enough super-cars, mansions, yachts already?)
What am I getting from it? Basic goods will become 7% cheaper? Who needs that? I am happy with current prices.
And then dozens if not hundreds of millions people worldwide will lose their jobs and even more the very means for their existence. What will be the impact on their families, communities?
I may be terribly wrong but it seems like yet another round of value extraction by a small cohort of ultra-rich from general society.
There are technologies that are genuinely useful, like space exploration, scientific projects, disease fighting, urban development, planetary computer network, and so on.
And there are "comfort gimmicks" like refined sugar (and sugary drinks), tobacco, toasters, etc. that produce effects from which people living consciously and healthy would want to get rid of. And that are propelled only by "economic factors". Which are a paperclip maximizer.
Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots
#17It isn't that simple. The robots will never be a drop-in replacement for all the various tasks that a "driver" actually does. Driving, negotiating the vehicle down the road, isn't the entire job. (1) People will still be needed for inspections and maintenance, however that will be done. Much of that is now covered by drivers (the little things) and cannot be automated. (2) Insurance companies may demand that a human,…
Each are edge cases and nothing which can't be fixed by further work.
>The concept that every driver can/will be replaced by an autodrive bot is naive.
The premise is that the driver aspect will be removed, the things you mentioned are not strictly what a driver does.
Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots
#18Yeah, I've been thinking lately as well, why are we doing that? I mean as a society? (I recall a phrase said by someone, that we are consciously building a future nobody wants to live in.) What exactly are we getting from that? Ultra-rich, namely car companies owners and shareholders, will become even more rich. (Why are they doing it, by the way, don't they have enough super-cars, mansions, yachts already?) What am…
In what way is this different than the industrial revolution? Are we, as a world, wallowing in relatively more people starving and in poverty than ever before? Why is this different?
Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots
#19The only people who really benefit from innovation are entrepreneurs, investors and shareholders. The majority of the population are actually worse off because of innovation (at least this is the case right now - The value is just not trickling down).
The worst part of this will come when even highly educated people start losing their jobs to machines... We will have a situation where entrepreneurs, investors and company shareholders will earn massive incomes while many of the world's smartest people (who fell through the cracks of the system) will struggle to make ends meet - I think many engineers already feel that this starting to happen now.
Money used to go mostly to employees, but as employees become less valuable in the workplace, it will go mostly to shareholders (owners of capital). This is why tax on income is making increasingly less sense - We need a tax on capital holdings instead.
When you consider the massive role that luck plays in becoming a successful entrepreneur, it does bring into question the fairness of the entire system.
The balance is shifting; we are moving from an economic system which not so long ago seemed 'mostly fair' to one which is becoming 'mostly unfair'. Maybe something like Universal Basic Income would be a good first step.
What we have now is no longer capitalism, it's increasingly an Oligopoly.
Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots
#20Yeah, I've been thinking lately as well, why are we doing that? I mean as a society? (I recall a phrase said by someone, that we are consciously building a future nobody wants to live in.) What exactly are we getting from that? Ultra-rich, namely car companies owners and shareholders, will become even more rich. (Why are they doing it, by the way, don't they have enough super-cars, mansions, yachts already?) What am…
I am pretty sure Luddites had very similar arguments back in the 19th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
If you look back at it, they were on the wrong side of history/argument. Automation is going to keep going, no matter what, and it is mostly a good thing. Yes, we might have few years of uneasy adjustment times, but things will sort themselves out on the long run.
Think of it, one modern excavator is much better than 50 people digging ditches. One operator with one machine replaced 50 manual workers, yet the world didn't end, but I think it got better over time*
*Whoever protects manual labour vs machines, hasn't lived through deep poor communism. Most eastern Europe didn't have the capital or means to have productive machines in the workplaces, and they replaced them with human labour. Over time the stark differences between west and east became very apparent.