American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots • Hacker News Board

Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots

#121

Post by tomkin » Mon, Aug 08, 2016, 1:58 AM UTC

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…

> 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 of work, therefore we need Universal Basic Income, so they won't starve!"

This is incredibly fanciful look at the future. The population cannot grow AND lose jobs to machines. Disruption is having its own variant of Moore's Law, in that, we are disrupting more industries at a faster rate.

UBI, or some form of which, will not only be necessary, but likely inevitable. The improvement of humanity you speak of is in fact a humanity that will survive on creativity, not labour. Labour is done.

Additionally, capitalism doesn't care about "expanded industries" any more than Moore's Law cares about engineers who made their career in the 1980s.

The transition is necessary, and it will be hard, and it won't happen without social security. It's a complete fantasy to see it happening any other way.

Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots

#122

Post by altcognito » Mon, Aug 08, 2016, 2:04 AM UTC

tuna-piano wrote: post #112

pdkl95 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I watched the video, and I have to say it had pretty poor arguments. Too many to name, but I think the core is this: If any conceivable software was free, required no human labor, and instantaneous: Would the world be a better or a worse place? (although I'd need to find something else to do) If computers replace doctors, and I get better care for cheaper, aren't I better off? ...If every job was automated, and you c…

There will always be scarcity of some sort or another, and there will always be want of something. There is also a predilection to be the person with the most stuff, and robots only accentuate that those with capital are the ones who are winning.

Maybe at some point people will just throw up their hands and start to embrace higher taxes on capital and UBI, but I'm not holding my breath.

Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots

#123

Post by mcphage » Mon, Aug 08, 2016, 2:05 AM UTC

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…

> or 2% farmed and 62% were on UBI - who would have had the time or incentive to create computers, software, advances in healthcare, etc?

The 62%, obviously.

Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots

#124

Post by mcphage » Mon, Aug 08, 2016, 2:11 AM UTC

steve19 wrote: post #28

papapra wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what you are missing is the fact that this time the changes will take place much faster. With farming, the changes were slower and generational.(The children of farmers didn't do farming). And still these changes had colossal impact on societies(and a lot of blood was spilled).

Humans have a tendency to always think "it's different this time". Trucking won't disappear overnight.

> Humans have a tendency to always think "it's different this time".

Humans also have a tendency to always think "it'll stay the same as is right now".

Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots

#125

Post by Tsagadai » Mon, Aug 08, 2016, 2:15 AM UTC

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.…

It is, it just isn't widely distributed. BHP and Rio Tinto operate automated trains in large areas of Australia.

Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots

#126

Post by Bulkington » Mon, Aug 08, 2016, 2:31 AM UTC

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

Fuel and drivers are a close 1 & 2 in motor carrier operating costs, with drivers taking the top spot when diesel is cheap.

[1] http://trucker.com/trucker-jobs/equipment-driver-pay-push-op...

Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots

#127

Post by naveen99 » Mon, Aug 08, 2016, 2:44 AM UTC

morgante wrote: post #63

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…

> If we had established UBI then, and people could get paid to sit around, imagine the state we'd be in today. We might even be in a better place than we are today. There would be even more entrepreneurship and labor would have more bargaining power when entering new industries. Nothing about UBI prevents there from being new opportunities created. If anything, it provides for more potential for those opportunities b…

Can we get a televised debate between you and yummyfajitas ?

I agree with both of you, though one is for and other against UBI.

I suggest a compromise. A linear increase in ubi from 0 to sustainable. I think going straight to sustainable is a little too drastic all of a sudden. It's like if we invented teleportation. That would destroy trucking faster than AI. But it would be chaos too.

Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots

#128

Post by TrevorJ » Mon, Aug 08, 2016, 2:46 AM UTC

Don't see it happening anytime soon. Self driving cars directly create convenience for the end user, and the public may be willing to accept a few crashes here and there in exchange for that convenience.

The first time an unmanned Fedex truck kills a family of 6 in a minivan people will decided they would rather pay a few cents more to have trucks driven by humans.

Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots

#129

Post by gwright » Mon, Aug 08, 2016, 2:48 AM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #18

beyondcompute wrote: post #16

Yeah, 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?

It is certainly worth talking about how to make things better, but all the stats I've ever seen indicate that the global incidence of poverty has been decreasing, not increasing.

For example, from: http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview

> According to the most recent estimates, in 2012, 12.7 percent of the world’s population lived at or below $1.90 a day. That’s down from 37 percent in 1990 and 44 percent in 1981.

Re: American truck drivers could lose their jobs to robots

#130

Post by morgante » Mon, Aug 08, 2016, 2:52 AM UTC

naveen99 wrote: post #127

morgante wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we had established UBI then, and people could get paid to sit around, imagine the state we'd be in today. We might even be in a better place than we are today. There would be even more entrepreneurship and labor would have more bargaining power when entering new industries. Nothing about UBI prevents there from being new opportunities created. If anything, it provides for more potential for those opportunities b…

Can we get a televised debate between you and yummyfajitas ? I agree with both of you, though one is for and other against UBI. I suggest a compromise. A linear increase in ubi from 0 to sustainable. I think going straight to sustainable is a little too drastic all of a sudden. It's like if we invented teleportation. That would destroy trucking faster than AI. But it would be chaos too.

> Can we get a televised debate between you and yummyfajitas ?

Call the networks. :)

> A linear increase in ubi from 0 to sustainable.

I agree that going straight to UBI would be impractical, both politically and economically. My preferred approach would be a step function: we eliminate one entitlement program at a time, and replace it with a corresponding amount of UBI.