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American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots

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Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots

#91

Post by ethanbond »

merpnderp wrote: post #26
k__ wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are more than enough things to do that help society, which aren't done at the moment, because no one pays for them.

I often see a lady riding her RoundABout scooter, on disability, picking up trash on the side of the road. She's incredibly nice and good hearted, and hates sitting around doing nothing. But the reason I stopped to talk to her was that it is unbelievably unusual for someone who is obviously on disability to be out doing something for the common good. And unless you have some hard data showing people on public assista…

Not sure how that's relevant. It's pretty clear the proposal is "require people to do the handiwork of their community in order to receive a basic income."

Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots

#92

Post by Pinckney »

merpnderp wrote: post #74
Pinckney wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Shockingly enough, a UBI has been a libertarian concept for nearly half a century. Can you recommend any reading on this?

Professor Zwolinksy of the University of Sand Diego had a good paper on it a few years ago. Covers the history and differing ideas and their drawbacks. Neat to think about, but would take a miracle for most people to take seriously. http://www.cato-unbound.org/2014/08/04/matt-zwolinski/pragma...

Thanks.

Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots

#93

Post by FooHentai »

What I don't get is, if we're so close to this becoming a reality, why isn't the lower hanging fruit of train/locomotive automation already here?

That seems to be an order of magnitude simpler issue to solve, and yet we don't seem to be there yet. Granted, forms of automation have penetrated that industry - deadmans switches, automated signalling and such. But there's still a human at the helm of every freight loco.

Smaller scale urban light rail deployments seem to have got close to full automation, presumably due to being able to embed all the necessary elements into the end-to-end installation of the system (signalling, stock, cameras/sensors etc).

How can the kind of full automation that would put truck drivers out of work, arrive before the kind that would put train drivers out of work?

Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots

#94

Post by lkbm »

PeterisP wrote: post #40
Osiris wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is no economic reason to automate things in order to replace 1.8 million drivers with 1.8 million engineers. Automation happens when you can replace 1.8 million drivers with 0.18 million engineers.

Except the extra 1.62 million engineers can be working on other things.

There's no shortage of useful things to build. It might be hard to think of things for 1.62 million people to build, but the good news is you and I don't have to think of those things ourselves right now. Those 1.62 million people will be thinking about it too.

Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots

#95

Post by douche »

jotux wrote: post #75
karma_vaccum123 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drivers are cheap. Eliminating them won't yield much. Improved safety will be the biggest gain The article cites $40k average pay per driver. That's fast-food wages

>The article cites $40k average pay per driver. That's fast-food wages Not really. That's basically $20/hour full-time.

In many of the places where these truckers live, that's solidly middle-class wages, also. Costs are significantly, significantly cheaper when a good single-family home costs 80-100k.

Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots

#96

Post by imaginenore »

tuna-piano wrote: post #6

The 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…

Extra money? Many people will lose jobs and will need government assistance.

Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots

#97

Post by xf00ba7 »

At some point everyone gets phased out. The question we should be asking, is how do we prepare to transition people from one job to the next more quickly. Coal miners are a perfect example. They're largely stuck. They haven't the money to send their kids to school to do something else, nor do they have the $$ to do it themselves (and likely not the time either). We need to rethink (as a planet), how we deal with churn.

Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots

#98

Post by SuperPaintMan »

karma_vaccum123 wrote: post #58
tuna-piano wrote: post #6

The 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…

Drivers are cheap. Eliminating them won't yield much. Improved safety will be the biggest gain The article cites $40k average pay per driver. That's fast-food wages

The typical fast food employee makes around 20K/yr, and most cooks can only command up to 30-40K without certifications. The constant supply and ease of training cooks (not chefs) keeps these wages depressed.

Trucking wages are not the greatest, but it feeds your family and pays the bills. The cost savings may be small but coming from a small town where 1/4 of the working population has class 3 and class 1 licenses operating these machines. It's a middle class lifestyle for these communities.

Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots

#99

Post by brianwawok »

galacticpony wrote: post #54

Simple solution: Ban self-driving trucks. I'm surprised that in the land of (apparently ) limitless legal liabilities, so many people are bullish on self-driving cars, let alone self-driving trucks. You should be highly concerned that the push towards this by big players is going to lead to laws where ultimately nobody will have to take up personal responsibility for accidents anymore.

Grandparents killed by truck driver on speed. Robot drivers can't get her soon enough.

Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots

#100

Post by maxerickson »

FooHentai wrote: post #93

What I don't get is, if we're so close to this becoming a reality, why isn't the lower hanging fruit of train/locomotive automation already here? That seems to be an order of magnitude simpler issue to solve, and yet we don't seem to be there yet. Granted, forms of automation have penetrated that industry - deadmans switches, automated signalling and such. But there's still a human at the helm of every freight loco.…

Trains may be easier to automate, but 100 train cars already only have 1 driver. There is a lot less cost that can be removed there than for trucking.

Even just deskilling trucking offers the opportunity for bigger cost savings.

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