Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers • Hacker News Board

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#111

Post by r00fus » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 6:47 PM UTC

natch wrote: post #65

bluetwo wrote: post #20

I feel like they re-invented the train. :-)

Trains are much less flexible. They have more constraints on their schedules, they have to share tracks, they only go certain places, you have to stop the entire train with all its freight in order to add any more freight, the unloading and loading points are much harder to scale.

Laying rail is fraught with property rights to build the track.

Roads are like rails that are already paved everywhere (with the significant addition to climate-impacting gas emissions).

Rails are easier in Europe because less of the land is owned by private interests making eminent domain easier.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#112

Post by astrodust » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 6:47 PM UTC

rconti wrote: post #97

Can't we get this technology nailed so well that hopping in a self-driving car for your day-to-day errands is something you do without a second thought, BEFORE we start sending out 30 ton missiles as beta tests?

Move fast. Break things. Kill people.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#113

Post by astrodust » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 6:48 PM UTC

secabeen wrote: post #44

username223 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right -- it's better than I thought, though it's still in the middle of the pack when measured by track per person or track per area: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_tran... I guess I'm biased by seeing all the abandoned rail, since it's well down from its peak.

Yeah, the US rail system is the best in the world for freight. In other countries, passenger rail has priority, so the freight service suffers a bit. In the US, it's the other way around.

That's also why Amtrak is such garbage compared to any civilized country.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#114

Post by rdeboo » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 6:49 PM UTC

temporalparts wrote: post #68

nopinsight wrote: post #8

For those concerned with jobs to be eliminated, it might not be as big a problem as we think for the trucking industry. "Over the next 10 years, he said, we need to attract almost 900,000 new people to the industry. Demographics is a big part of the problem. ATA’s research arm, the American Transportation Research Institute, recently updated its demographic data on drivers and found some 57% of drivers are 45 or olde…

Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) were set to put Bank Tellers out of a job, but since its introduction, the number of Bank Tellers increased [0]. While I can't guarantee that something similar will happen for truckers, automation does not guarantee that fewer humans will be employed doing that specific job. [0] http://www.aei.org/publication/what-atms-bank-tellers-rise-r...

I don't have data but my gut feeling says that the numbers of Bank Tellers has peaked. In my country (Netherlands) a lot of small branches of banks have closed. The general trend is towards self-service / online.

Anecdotically, I went to the bank across the street 2 years ago to ask some question about insurance. I was told to go to the website and look up the information there. The branch is now closed.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#115

Post by masklinn » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 6:50 PM UTC

ktpsns wrote: post #92

The funny thing in this US-centric view is that we have such a cargo since a century where trains play the role of "self-driving cargo". In europe, the decline of cargo on tracks (trains) is also partially owed to subsidiation of automobile traffic and highway expansions. It is a pity, because from the raw numbers trains are much less expensive then tracks.

I think that's misplaced, freight is the one area where NA in general and US in particular absolutely blows every other region out the water. Circa 2010 Rail was ~40% of US freight by ton-mile, whereas for the EU it was ~17%, and the US had 10x more tonne-kilometer freight rail than the EU (beyond China and Russia, with India a very distant third) (nb: China carried more tonnes total but shorter distances)

Of course a major reason for that is that the US have (literally) tons of commodities, a significant plurality of the tonnage is coal. I expect roughly the same of Russia, China, Australia and India (the other members of the tonnage top 5, Australia notably haults extremely heavy stuff for very short distances as it's about on par with the EU for tkm but waaay ahead in total tonnage).

Hell one of the reasons passenger trains is shit in the US is that passenger rail does not get priority over freight and thus you get the country's lone "high-speed train" giving way to slow freight leading to an average speed of 130km/h, slower than some non-high-speed intercity service in Europe.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#116

Post by jccooper » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 6:51 PM UTC

lonelyw0lf wrote: post #42

The video ad is so crazy -- we still need a human to lock/unlock the cargo?? and its good for the truckers because they can go home early to their family?? The first part can be trivially automated and the second is just stupid. Truckers get paid per hour of work, less work == less money. AI-self-driving has arrived but to make the transition look "humane" as in the AD is crazy. Almost insults the intelligence of the…

> The first part can be trivially automated

Having done some cargo loading and unloading myself, good luck with that. It's a very heterogeneous environment and task.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#117

Post by jsmthrowaway » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 6:51 PM UTC

superfrank wrote: post #83

gaius wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

rest of his time sleeping, reading, or coding Problematic in at least two ways, probably three.

Even if (and that's a very big if) we get to a point where we decide we need someone behind the wheel of these truck, but it's okay for them to be staring at a laptop the entire time, I can't see a whole lot of quality code coming from someone who is sitting in the cabin of a truck with one eye constantly on the road.

I'm not kidding: I've imagined exactly that as a career change more than once. Live on the road, see new places every day, hack on open source projects, write, spend time with someone with similar interests (the hardest part). What's not to love?

Even removing the autonomous angle, I've thought about driving during the day and having laptop time for the same activities during rest periods. Probably seems weird, but I'd be in if I could make it work. I do my best thinking behind the wheel, and I've solved a number of engineering problems on road trips. It seems ideal.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#118

Post by jstarfish » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 6:52 PM UTC

rconti wrote: post #97

Can't we get this technology nailed so well that hopping in a self-driving car for your day-to-day errands is something you do without a second thought, BEFORE we start sending out 30 ton missiles as beta tests?

I agree with the sentiment, but guiding a large missile down a straight highway with human oversight has many fewer variables than navigating smaller missiles through crowded urban areas.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#119

Post by SamBam » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 6:54 PM UTC

mmazing wrote: post #74

Should be a fun day when people realize they can pretty easily hijack automated trucks. I assume you could either get in the back of the thing while it's moving, or simply slow down in front of it and cause it to stop. Unload your newly acquired goods and be on your way!

You can do that now. Most truck drivers aren't going to defend their cargo with a gun.

So what's stopping people from doing that now?

Note: an automated truck can probably dial 9-1-1 as easily as a human.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#120

Post by kingbirdy » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 6:56 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #115

ktpsns wrote: post #92

The funny thing in this US-centric view is that we have such a cargo since a century where trains play the role of "self-driving cargo". In europe, the decline of cargo on tracks (trains) is also partially owed to subsidiation of automobile traffic and highway expansions. It is a pity, because from the raw numbers trains are much less expensive then tracks.

I think that's misplaced, freight is the one area where NA in general and US in particular absolutely blows every other region out the water. Circa 2010 Rail was ~40% of US freight by ton-mile, whereas for the EU it was ~17%, and the US had 10x more tonne-kilometer freight rail than the EU (beyond China and Russia, with India a very distant third) (nb: China carried more tonnes total but shorter distances) Of course…

The data mostly looks like population data then, if US, India, and China are the leaders. What would it look like for ton-mile per capita (if that's actually a statistic)?