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Google veterans head off on their own to work on self-driving trucks

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Re: Google veterans head off on their own to work on self-driving trucks

#71

Post by spenczar5 »

cheriot wrote: post #15

Sending a truck down an interstate for 20 hours has to be the lowest hanging fruit for self driving vehicles. When was the last time an entire category of jobs became obsolete fast enough that laid off employees blamed the technology? When long haul truckers are out of work, how will municipal bus driver unions react?

> When was the last time an entire category of jobs became obsolete fast enough that laid off employees blamed the technology?

Containerized shipping. Interestingly, it's in the world of logistics too. Longshoremen/dockworkers/stevedores used to be among the most common occupations in the US at the turn of the century, but now the industry employs a tiny fraction. A small group of a few hundred people can effectively run an enormous port like Oakland's.

Yes, the employees blamed the technology, but so did local governments. Places like Baltimore relied pretty heavily on the docks to supply their population with jobs; when those disappeared quickly many cities (especially on the eastern US coast) had a really tough time economically.

Re: Google veterans head off on their own to work on self-driving trucks

#72

Post by bluedino »

lutefisk wrote: post #66
Loughla wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is so flippant and just the most immature thing. As an under 30 year old, highly educated individual, yep - just get another job. Move somewhere across country if you need to; you don't have kids or a mortgage. As a specialized veteran of a job that requires very few transferable skills, truck drivers are fucked initially, and we'll see massive unemployment from this. In many cases, the areas with high ratios of…

What about stagecoach drivers? Bread makers? Blacksmiths? Switchboard operator? What did all these people do when their services were no longer necessary / greatly diminished? It's not like by Friday automated trucking will take over. You know it's coming, and if you don't start learning new skills or look for new work, then you're just ignorant to technology and will be out of a job.

What happens as your list grows, as it will, and takes up every possible job? Eventually we could hit some sci-fi future where robots build other robots and AI comes up with new inventions on it's own.

Re: Google veterans head off on their own to work on self-driving trucks

#73

Post by maxerickson »

delecti wrote: post #35
nashashmi wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Auto truck driving won't remove truck drivers from their jobs too fast. There is a ton of science involved in trucking and good training is key. For this reason, a person will still be required for local driving.

At any one time, what percentage of the total truck drivers would you imagine are currently on the road vs maneuvering the last mile. The last mile might be a significant portion of where their skill shines, but it's almost certainly not a significant portion of the time spent. If a driver spends 1 hour at each end of a 20 hour cross region trip, that could still be a 10 times decrease in the total number of skilled…

I kind of wonder if the first thing that will be deskilled is the last 1000 feet.

A lot of shipments do go to places that get infrequent deliveries, but any place that is receiving trucks all day every day might decide it makes sense to program the maneuvers once and not let humans fool around with each truck anymore.

I'm assuming that the automation system will have equal or better fine grained control over the vehicle-trailer system, so you only need a driver when decisions are complex. For the last 1000 feet, the decisions are easy (go/don't go) but accurate control is important. Ford shipped a backup system on their trucks last year, so I don't think I'm way out on a limb.

Re: Google veterans head off on their own to work on self-driving trucks

#74

Post by Loughla »

lutefisk wrote: post #66
Loughla wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is so flippant and just the most immature thing. As an under 30 year old, highly educated individual, yep - just get another job. Move somewhere across country if you need to; you don't have kids or a mortgage. As a specialized veteran of a job that requires very few transferable skills, truck drivers are fucked initially, and we'll see massive unemployment from this. In many cases, the areas with high ratios of…

What about stagecoach drivers? Bread makers? Blacksmiths? Switchboard operator? What did all these people do when their services were no longer necessary / greatly diminished? It's not like by Friday automated trucking will take over. You know it's coming, and if you don't start learning new skills or look for new work, then you're just ignorant to technology and will be out of a job.

>You know it's coming, and if you don't start learning new skills or look for new work, then you're just ignorant to technology and will be out of a job.

I didn't realize truck drivers were known for staying abreast of advances in technology.

Re: Google veterans head off on their own to work on self-driving trucks

#75

Post by stuxnet79 »

jon-wood wrote: post #17
codecamper wrote: post #10

refueling?

All the out of work truck drivers can become pump attendants waiting to fill up their former vehicles as they pull in for more fuel.

Funny comment, but it looks like you are fishing for downvotes here buddy. Assuming these trucks are electric, they could set it up like the Tesla recharging stations where you can recharge simply by driving over a mini-trapdoor that houses a fully charged battery pack and a robotic arm which can swap your expended pack for the new one.

Re: Google veterans head off on their own to work on self-driving trucks

#76

Post by lgieron »

true_religion wrote: post #63
lgieron wrote: post #33

Who goes to jail when the self-driving truck kills someone?

Why must someone go to prison? If the vehicle is operating normally and regulation allows it to operate without a driver in command, then there is no crime.

I agree that if the regulation allows it, then the self-driving car is a device like any other. I wonder if startups such as Otto will actually wait till such legislation passes in entire country, which is arguably going to take at least a decade (and they declare they don't want to be acquired, but sell to end customers).

Re: Google veterans head off on their own to work on self-driving trucks

#77

Post by bitJericho »

jhall1468 wrote: post #64
lgieron wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it work for self-driving cars then? In case of regular cars, you go to jail for vehicular manslaughter when you brake the traffic laws and in effect kill someone. My guess is that, if the driver of a self-driving car decides to press the "auto drive" button and the car violates traffic laws and kills someone, it's still the driver who's responsible. The self-driving features are not deemed safe by law and ar…

> In case of regular cars, you go to jail for vehicular manslaughter when you brake the traffic laws and in effect kill someone. But the truck won't do that. Break the law, that is. Unlike humans, its knowledge of traffic laws will be complete. It won't "break the law" in the sense that you are using the phrase. However, there are other ethical/moral issues (do we program a car to kill 1 person if it saves 3?).

I wrote a satirical article about this once. http://witscience.org/wit-helps-produce-safe-driverless-cars...

Re: Google veterans head off on their own to work on self-driving trucks

#78

Post by arrrg »

nashashmi wrote: post #53
delecti wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At any one time, what percentage of the total truck drivers would you imagine are currently on the road vs maneuvering the last mile. The last mile might be a significant portion of where their skill shines, but it's almost certainly not a significant portion of the time spent. If a driver spends 1 hour at each end of a 20 hour cross region trip, that could still be a 10 times decrease in the total number of skilled…

I frown when we look at a technology negatively for the impact on the JOBS out there. Instead, let's take a look at the tech for the benefits it provides the person doing the job, how much it will improve the quality of life and the quality of work, and how much more a worker can accomplish. Few people realize there is a caveat here too: Driver efficiency goes up and that means drivers can get paid more. The cost of…

I view this as a key task for societies: Insuring that quick changes due to technological progress (or any other quick changes that are hard for anyone and especially individuals to foresee and plan for, like natural disasters) don’t leave people behind, in destitution or poverty or without any perspective.

If the World’s societies were up to that task more frequently less talk about jobs would be necessary.

Natural disasters are obviously a quite different story (but one where some societies are at least marginally better at supporting people, mostly because everyone accepts that people are just blameless and that makes it somehow easier to help), but technological progress usually benefits some people immensely and frequently has a positive (on average) on society as a whole. (But even that rising tide can leave people behind and leave people behind until they eventually just die of old age. So not a pleasant situation and those people have to be taken care of.)

Because of this it should be no problem to temporarily support those who are left behind. If current assumptions hold that support might even just have to be quite temporary (since beyond a certain point people will just stop wanting to do certain jobs because it’s obvious those have no future), so it’s not like we have that obligation forever.

Obviously, if current assumptions don’t hold (and large segments of the population will be permanently out of a job with no way to really change that, even across longer timeframes) we have to look for alternate solutions, like basic income, but that doesn’t seem too difficult, either. We just have to want it.

Re: Google veterans head off on their own to work on self-driving trucks

#79

Post by amelius »

vonmoltke wrote: post #68
wrsh07 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As opposed to a company with top of the line machine learning systems.

A company with top of the line machine learning systems designed to improve advertising results is not better positioned to build an autonomous vehicle than a company with top of the line non-autonomous vehicles.

Indeed. It has been said many times before: machine learning is all about the data, not about the algorithms.

Re: Google veterans head off on their own to work on self-driving trucks

#80

Post by [deleted] »

arrrg wrote: post #78
nashashmi wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I frown when we look at a technology negatively for the impact on the JOBS out there. Instead, let's take a look at the tech for the benefits it provides the person doing the job, how much it will improve the quality of life and the quality of work, and how much more a worker can accomplish. Few people realize there is a caveat here too: Driver efficiency goes up and that means drivers can get paid more. The cost of…

I view this as a key task for societies: Insuring that quick changes due to technological progress (or any other quick changes that are hard for anyone and especially individuals to foresee and plan for, like natural disasters) don’t leave people behind, in destitution or poverty or without any perspective. If the World’s societies were up to that task more frequently less talk about jobs would be necessary. Natural…

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