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.…
Because in the grand scheme of things, train drivers cost nothing.
A single train driver moves 100x more stuff than a truck driver.
> 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.
Unfortunately, highly technical jobs have a floor problem. It's sort of like the "You must be this tall to ride" signs at the amusement park, except its "You must be this smart to do this job effectively." Not everybody that can drive a truck or swing a chainsaw has the mental tools to handle the increased complexity.
or... decreased shipping costs will go into the pockets of the business owners as additional profits. Since I'm already used to paying $X for that, why would you necessarily cut that out when you can keep it? Just another possibility.
Because a competitor will come along and do so
Why, when they can collude (implicitly or explicitly) and keep the profits high for both of them? It's much more profitable to put someone out of business through methods other than competition.
Farming and other types of automation that put people out of work in the past used technology to amplify and/or replace physical labor. Now we are learning how to use the general purpose computer to replace mental labor. These are different types of automation that will have fundamentally different effects on society. While we have many examples of new technology replacing physical labor, automation of mental labor i…
>Assuming this was even possible and assuming there will be jobs for all of these new programmers/etc, is this retraining cheaper than UBI or other plans? That's assuming that programming won't be one of the first categories of jobs to be automated away by AI. Think of the cost savings! But thankfully we don't have to worry about what all those poor programmers are going to do since it's progress for humanity.
Thus the reason I know carpentry :3 but, having programmed for a while, it seems like the hardest problems are converting plain english requirements to source code. At the point that that becomes trivial (and doesn't fall into WYSIWYG editors or graphical languages, which already exist and haven't brought about the apocalypse), wouldn't you just ask the computer to make itself smarter over and over? Or ask it to automate any other profession with stupendous ease?
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…
Retraining a farmer's kid to be a riveter on a bridge construction project in the late C18/early C20 is a whole lot more feasible than retraining a 40yo professional driver for the jobs opened up by their obsolescence, such as rocket surgery and brain engineering.
The 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 com…
The majority of the population now don't starve when there's bad weather, have indoor plumbing, healthcare, don't die from playing tennis without socks. What do we need money for now, and why? Houses mostly, because a) hand built, and b) scarcity.
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.
There need to be more safety systems on trucks driven by people today. I was on I-80 in western Nebraska last weekend. The road was closed for hours after a distracted semi driver slammed into cars slowing down in a construction zone. 6 people were killed.
I get alerts for I-70 in Colorado. The number of semis that jack knife in winter is terrifying.
>Assuming this was even possible and assuming there will be jobs for all of these new programmers/etc, is this retraining cheaper than UBI or other plans? That's assuming that programming won't be one of the first categories of jobs to be automated away by AI. Think of the cost savings! But thankfully we don't have to worry about what all those poor programmers are going to do since it's progress for humanity.
A few jobs I feel pretty safe will still be here in 50 years. They include robot repair, nurses, and computer programmer. Maybe not in 100 years but I won't care then.
If robots can do surgery, surely they can do nursing. And repair themselves. And write programs. And even new and better programming languages that humans can't understand.
>Assuming this was even possible and assuming there will be jobs for all of these new programmers/etc, is this retraining cheaper than UBI or other plans? That's assuming that programming won't be one of the first categories of jobs to be automated away by AI. Think of the cost savings! But thankfully we don't have to worry about what all those poor programmers are going to do since it's progress for humanity.
A few jobs I feel pretty safe will still be here in 50 years. They include robot repair, nurses, and computer programmer. Maybe not in 100 years but I won't care then.
Why repair robots when you can just disassemble them the same way you assembled them(automatically) and reuse the functioning parts and recycle the rest?