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

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

#251

Post by njwi332 »

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...

This isn't actually correct, or at least it's not a correct interpretation of the data. The absolute number increased, but it decreased as a percentage of population, which is the relevant number here.

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

#252

Post by [deleted] »

stephengillie wrote: post #240
temporalparts wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Most grocery stores don't even have self-check stations. It's clear that these open more opportunities for loss than they generate returns in increased shopper throughout and return visits. Meanwhile, my mother still curses the personal computer revolution for taking her job as a transcriptionist. Everyone types today, so specialists are rarely needed.

[deleted]

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

#253

Post by p2t2p »

orthecreedence wrote: post #226
iak8god wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hoping for a future where the machines do all the work required to provide everything human beings need to survive, AND where we've figured out a reasonable way to distribute resources in a world where not everyone will be able to "contribute to society" by spending huge amounts of their waking time doing something they'd not otherwise do, in exchange for tokens that can be redeemed for food and shelter.

Yes, but that would be communism, so let's just let people who were born into or stumbled into their wealth amass more of it. I think in general we need to start being more thoughtful about how the things we do can sometimes be hurtful to billionaires.

Well, while you’re joking the original idea of communism and what I’ve been taught about Lenin was about excatly this - communism is inevitable because of technical progress. Call it what you want - universal income, handouts, we will end up in communism.

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

#254

Post by p2t2p »

antihero wrote: post #212
LethargicStud wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, the idea of stifling innovation to "preserve jobs" is harmful to society. Upon choosing a career, you should consider the longevity of that career. Some people will still pick wrong for a multitude of reasons. Hopefully, those people can pivot. It is unreasonable to hold the entire population back to continue employing those in a specific field. If we consistently did that, we'd be in the stone age and our…

Despite being a coder, I almost desire tech work to become replaced by machines at some point, with the only options of retraining to be prohibitively hard and leaving us in the dreadful position of these workers, just so I can watch people with attitudes like this get it handed to them. The attitudes we have towards the unskilled, low-skilled, or those who are being replaced and made redundant by the systems we deve…

I don’t really understand you mate, what are you suggesting, stop technical progress? Sure it harsh and one day we will be next but so be it, it’s life.

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

#255

Post by imcrs »

PantaloonFlames wrote: post #160
gthtjtkt wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, the economic pie will be enlarged and there will be more to share. How the fruits of technology will be distributed will depend to a large extent on negotiations and politics. If recent history is any indication of how this will turn out, it's not going to be pretty. The rich get richer and everyone else gets screwed.

> The rich get richer and everyone else gets screwed. Not actually true. a more accurate telling is: the rich get richer and the poor get richer too. You may commenting on the fact that the rich are getting richer FASTER than the poor are getting richer, and that's an interesting phenomenon to comment on, but it is undeniable that everyone is getting richer, almost regardless how you slice the data. Worldwide, extrem…

I have always wondered how we can reconcile that things "are" objectively so great and yet "seem" subjectively so bad. In my experience both online and off, there is a pessimism about work, poverty, and basic security that persists (or is even getting worse) despite these changes. To my eyes, it has to be larger than just the state of the media.

We have a few of things we can quantify, and that are often brought out in discussions such as this one. Healthcare outcomes, wages, life expectancy, basic material goods, access to education, casualties from war, etc.

I heard another commenter here talk about the human experience being understood as a vector, with twenty or thirty dimensions. Most of those are moving in their positive directions. But the problem is that when God made the human experience, he crafted it with uncountably many components, most of them themselves unquantifiable.

Unfortunately for us "objectively" exists only in that limited set, not in the greater whole. "The number of species going extinct per unit time is more than it has ever been, maybe ever." What is the cost, paid in pessimism and hopelessness rather than dollars, of knowing that? Does it counteract a 2 month increase in my projected lifespan?

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

#256

Post by Noos »

nopinsight wrote: post #234
nvahalik wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how "often" but some do. There might be people with special arrangements but if you are like the people I interact with then you probably engage with an assisted living agency for anywhere from $18-$30/hr. Let's take the low number as an example. $18 * 24 * 365 = $157.7K per year. How many people can afford $150k just for care? Not very many. And $18/hr is on the very low end of the spectrum. If you're a…

Assuming the actual work to care for an elderly with non-full-time need is up to 8 hours a day, paid at $12 per hour, the cost would be 8 * 365 * $12 = $35,040 per year. Other family members can hopefully cover the rest of hours if needed. My question: What are the benefits of going through an agency when the cost could be over 100% higher than hiring someone directly? Hiring direct allows you to screen in person and…

because you're already tired and taxed from dealing with a senior with dementia or a child with severe mental retardation, and there aren't enough hours in the day as it is.

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

#257

Post by masklinn »

txsh wrote: post #157
masklinn wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The data mostly looks like population data then The US has a smaller population than the EU (~300m to ~500m). So does Russia (150m). Australia has a significantly smaller population than the EU (15^H^H25m as golemiprague noted). It's not population data it's mineral commodities. > What would it look like for ton-mile per capita (if that's actually a statistic)? The US would climb to ~15x the tonnes-kilometers per c…

Europe’s population is ~750m.

The numbers I have are specifically for EU27, not for the entire continent, and EU27's population is about 500 million people.

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

#258

Post by ZeroGravitas »

marcosdumay wrote: post #178
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those high wage earning survivors are also paying high wages to all the other survivors, then are they actually better off? My gut reaction is no, less people means less work is being done and you lose a lot of economies of scale.

Few people pay wages, many people collect them. But I don't think history will be useful, because depopulation also causes on increase in agricultural productivity (per person) that is a huge confounding variable.

Few people pay wages directly, everyone pays wages indirectly.

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

#259

Post by a3n »

LethargicStud wrote: post #33
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…

Generally, the idea of stifling innovation to "preserve jobs" is harmful to society. Upon choosing a career, you should consider the longevity of that career. Some people will still pick wrong for a multitude of reasons. Hopefully, those people can pivot. It is unreasonable to hold the entire population back to continue employing those in a specific field. If we consistently did that, we'd be in the stone age and our…

If you could actually predict and pick with more than random success, you'd make more money predicting and picking then you would working in whatever you predicted.

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

#260

Post by dsfyu404ed »

icebraining wrote: post #205
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, which exact parts are self-driving? Just enough of it that they can skirt the DOT hour rules about hours worked while still blaming the driver for any crashes or tickets would be my guess. That's the obvious lowest hanging fruit as far as trucking is concerned. If you can automate enough of the long haul grind that the driver could possibly be sleeping then you have a massive competitive advantage over everyone…

I don't think you can skirt them. Time on-duty counts against their daily limit even if they're not driving (the example given in an official guide is a trucker taking a bus to get to the truck), so they must still get a proper rest afterwards. So Uber can't count the "not driving but watching the road" as time off.

They're not going to be on duty. They're going to be sleeping in the sleeper, on paper at least.
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