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This Year, Autonomous Trucks Will Take to the Road with No One on Board

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: This Year, Autonomous Trucks Will Take to the Road with No One on Board

#11

Post by HenryKissinger »

There are 3.5 million truck drivers in the US.

What are 3.5 million people going to do if they're suddenly out of a job and have to change career completely?

I am far from being a Trump supporter, but it would be easy for authoritarian politicians to ride to the White House on the grievances of millions of voters who had their livelihoods taken away from them by automation. Trump's promises to bring back manufacturing jobs were fueled by the automation and outsourcing that have already eliminated millions of positions. So Trump's victory in 2016 was already due in part to a backlash against automation.

No society where an average person - of average intelligence, average skills, average potential - cannot make a good living for themselves, can survive as a civilized society.

We can't all be developers, engineers, or doctors.

Re: This Year, Autonomous Trucks Will Take to the Road with No One on Board

#12

Post by StreamBright »

jariel wrote: post #9

I cannot believe that this isn't the foundation of autonomous driving: long hauls, highways, no stop signs, semi-controlled circumstances. The economics are more clear and industrialized. Even if a driver had to be present when they got off the highway, I think 'long haul' should be naturally the first thing to be tackled. And I'm surprised Walmart isn't leading the way, they should be.

There is one minor detail to add: the truck weight and speed makes it much more dangerous than a simple passenger car. The first couple of lawsuits when these statistical engines do some real damage will be brutal.

Re: This Year, Autonomous Trucks Will Take to the Road with No One on Board

#13

Post by peteradio »

lookdangerous wrote: post #6

I wonder how an autonomous truck responds when a tire blows

Standard response is to explode the entire truck in place on the highway. You can upgrade for a nominal fee which will cause truck to pull to the next available side of the road in case of tire failure.

Re: This Year, Autonomous Trucks Will Take to the Road with No One on Board

#15

Post by oldgradstudent »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #11

There are 3.5 million truck drivers in the US. What are 3.5 million people going to do if they're suddenly out of a job and have to change career completely? I am far from being a Trump supporter, but it would be easy for authoritarian politicians to ride to the White House on the grievances of millions of voters who had their livelihoods taken away from them by automation. Trump's promises to bring back manufacturin…

For that to happen, you actually need working autonomous trucks.

Sadly, press releases, PowerPoint decks, heavily edited videos on YouTube, and even artificial demos in tightly controlled environments are not enough.

Re: This Year, Autonomous Trucks Will Take to the Road with No One on Board

#16

Post by AlwaysRock »

lookdangerous wrote: post #6

I wonder how an autonomous truck responds when a tire blows

I wonder if they would respond better or worse than a human. Do tires blow often on large trucks? If not a trained system could have more fed data on what to do in that situation than a human who has never or rarely experienced it.

Re: This Year, Autonomous Trucks Will Take to the Road with No One on Board

#17

Post by onion2k »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #11

There are 3.5 million truck drivers in the US. What are 3.5 million people going to do if they're suddenly out of a job and have to change career completely? I am far from being a Trump supporter, but it would be easy for authoritarian politicians to ride to the White House on the grievances of millions of voters who had their livelihoods taken away from them by automation. Trump's promises to bring back manufacturin…

What are 3.5 million people going to do if they're suddenly out of a job and have to change career completely?

There's a precedent for this. Back in the early part of the 20th century the number of people working in the horse trade fell dramatically as horses were replaced with automobiles. Society survived.

Re: This Year, Autonomous Trucks Will Take to the Road with No One on Board

#18

Post by intended »

mc32 wrote: post #7
onion2k wrote: post #2

If I block a road an autonomous truck is expecting to drive along, will it automatically reroute to another road? If it does, then these trucks are going to be very easy to rob simply by corralling them in to a quiet location..

That would probably happen if you had armored autonomous Brinks CIT trucks driving around. But just as likely they’d have thought of this scenario and prepared for it.

No one prepares for what motivated attackers think of.

These trucks will be robbed. I look forward to LIDAR invisible, reflective cars in the next fast and furious installment.

Re: This Year, Autonomous Trucks Will Take to the Road with No One on Board

#19

Post by Retric »

lookdangerous wrote: post #6

I wonder how an autonomous truck responds when a tire blows

Presumably the same thing human trucks do and keep driving. 7/8 is within the safety margin and 2 blowouts on the same trip is extremely rare.

That’s the reason for a dual tire setup as it’s designed for this kind of redundancy.

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