It's interesting that on the "what could go wrong" discussions on HN, the focus has been on the discussion of insurance and events like truck-jacking. Those are the issues of today. I think there's a far more interesting future at play.
These trucks can and will put people out of work. Right now a large majority of the testing of autonomous vehicles is focused on "perfect environments". Yes, Google will say that test driving autonomous cars in San Francisco is far from a perfect environment; however, in a future where people are loosing their livelihoods, ways to hack autonomous vehicles will be explored, and I'm not talking about just hacking a vehicle CAN bus. All of these vehicles rely on technologies like radar, LIDAR, IR vision, etc. None of which are fool-proof and each of which could fall to very specific attacks. I hope that the auto manufacturers are considering this future. After all, we have technologies today like GNU Radio and the HackRF One which have brought what was once the domain of the nation state to the general public.
Farming is actually a great example. There were farmers who did fight back against farm machinery. Sabotage of tractors and equipment was an actual thing here in the US and abroad. You can even find whole groups of anti-tractor types in the American Amish country.
These days it's sabotage against GMO crops. You'll find Monsanto and other companies will place their GMO test fields in regions of the country known to be sympathetic and/or will keep them under armed guard.
But yet everything to do with this topic. The Amish believe one must work in harmony with nature. Tractors as an example threaten this harmony. I'm just waiting for some religion somewhere to state that self-driving vehicles are the work of the devil, or a threat to the Protestant work ethic. There might even be some political aspects of this a they are a signal of the coming "liberal leisure society."
> The Amish believe one must work in harmony with nature.
I don't quite like that description either. I think it's more that they want to encourage interdependence within the community. They are not opposed to technology that they believe doesn't threaten that community dynamic.
80 years is a very long time. It's long enough for two or three generations to grow up, decide what they want to do for their career, notice their dad's career outlook doesn't seem to be on the rise, and go to work in a factory or office.
If the number of truck drivers goes down by 90% in the next 80 years, that would be fine. If it goes down by 90% in the next 8 years, then we'll have a lot of mis-trained ex-truck drivers out there, and that's nothing to scoff at.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics The Average age of current Truck Drivers is 51. Where is a guy, 14 years away from retirement who probably doesn't have a college degree going to go? I suppose he COULD get a loan, and try to get a degree, then pay off that loan and earn a living for another 10 years.
Farmers transitioning is a bad analogy. People live longer, require more education, and have less control over their work life if they aren't tech-savy.
I see 4 possibilities. We have an aging work population 65 and older working entry level skilled jobs to pay off college loans they got later in life. Or we have a larger "welfare" state, we have a better "public higher education" program, or we have more millennials taking care of their boomer parents because their parents couldn't find work, and social security hasn't kicked in yet.
You are under the assumption that 'efficiency' means resource efficiency. That is untrue. Exhibit A is how convoluted our current system is with our non-renewables. Replacing people with machines won't fix that.
Efficiency is celebrating the fact that you can drop your expensive annual costs and the liability of employing humans to conduct your business. People are expensive and demand things like rights and benefits. Machines can be had with a purchase/lease and maintenance costs.
Machines won't negotiate or get a lawyer. That's efficiency.
Meanwhile, we'll strip the earth to build these machines in the name of efficiency while more of the population is made useless and left to rot by an economy that functions without them.
That's an interesting narrative. It is however historically inaccurate. All throughout human history we have replaced tedious, dangerous and repetitive tasks through means other than human labor. Increased efficiency (let's set aside the definition for the moment) has only helped us.
Who is the us "efficiency" has helped? At the end of the day, do I benefit from the fact that Company X's truck no longer needs a driver?
Does that benefit really outweigh ruining the livelihoods of millions of people, whose family now can't pay taxes and lost their ability to see doctors or to maintain a roof over their heads?
When do we get to reap the benefits of this automation?
There is a lot of money being made by letting people go and letting the tax payer pay for the societal damage.
Will those millions of drivers be transferred to a new department within the company? Will they get a severance check from the profits of this automation? Or will unemployment and lack of medical care shave 20+ years off their lives so a shipping company can save a dime that society gets to pay for?
True free market capitalism is the polar opposite of slavery. The only transactions which are allowed are ones in which both parties have consensually agreed to the set terms.
Welfare isn't effective I agree. What do you think about a NIT?
Capitalism does not have a concept of consensual transactions, only transactions. Exploitation of the slave class is something multiple empires have grown out of.
Whenever people CAN exploit (in the name of capitalism, or racial superiority, or any other equally sociopathic concept) they will. Why are we working hard to put our neighbors out of the job in the name of some ideology? It seems a lot like you literally care more about the efficiency of the market than you do giving people a form of sustenance (or income they can barter for sustenance).
Of course the underlying assumption here is that putting people out of work will negatively effect the economy or the well-being of individuals, which isn't necessarily the case. This is currently how our system works (so it will in the short-term), but if we want to collectively progress as a society I think most would agree that the average individual should have vastly more amounts of leisure-time in the future than they do today. Perhaps that means not everyone needs to work.
I believe we're fast approaching the need to re-evaluate how we treat (un)employment and the role of individuals with an imposed obligation towards economic contribution, particularly due to the automation and/or efficiency we gain through technology. Will we always have enough work for everyone to sufficiently provide for themselves without "redistribution of wealth" programs? More importantly, if we force everyone to work to provide for themselves, is the work done actually creating value to society? Is it necessary?
We still have train drivers, even though they're almost, but not quite, redundant. I can't imagine how trucks could be so automated that no driver at all is needed when we don't even do that with trains. Truck drivers will surely still be with us for long enough to retire.
Divide the hourly cost of a human railroad engineer by the total value of the goods they transport by train. Then divide the hourly cost of a truck driver by the total value of goods that can fit into a single truck. The latter ratio is orders greater, and that means there's a much higher economic incentive to replace the truck driver than there ever will be to replace railroad engineers. And I would wager this difference in incentives widens when the amount of damage done by inattentive truck drivers vs. inattentive engine drivers is taken under consideration.
Besides, operators will probably desire a small crew to watch over their trains anyway for the foreseeable future, regardless of whether a human is in the pilot's seat.
I also think it is weird that they don't start with trains.
In Denmark the Metro is operated by a computer, but the whole thing is built around this. The next step to me is not a truck, but a "normal" train that still has to interact with the rest of the train network around it. Then we can move on to trams and then trucks and buses.
Truck drivers probably have a lot more accidents and job performance variability. Also, the railroad engineer's salary is probably an even smaller portion of the load's value than for a truck driver.
It's interesting how many converstations on HN devolve into "This will put people out of work".
Of course it will.
Think of how many in industries related to horses (hay, stalls, cleaning, horseshoes...) were put out of business when the automobile was invented.
Think of the guys that used to drive around and put blocks of ice in your fridge before electricity.
Or countless millions of others that were put out of work when a better/different way was found to do something.
It's fine. Those people will re-train. When there are no more coal plants there will be a lot more people working in the solar/wind business. It's OK, don't panic.
No, people will re-train, but those folks directly put out of work in this instance will not likely turn around and immediately find work as a software engineer maintaining autonomous vehicles. In the long run society retrains, but there is a disruption period that affects real people.
These trucks can and will put people out of work. Right now a large majority of the testing of autonomous vehicles is focused on "perfect environments". Yes, Google will say that test driving autonomous cars in San Francisco is far from a perfect environment; however, in a future where people are loosing their livelihoods, ways to hack autonomous vehicles will be explored, and I'm not talking about just hacking a vehicle CAN bus. All of these vehicles rely on technologies like radar, LIDAR, IR vision, etc. None of which are fool-proof and each of which could fall to very specific attacks. I hope that the auto manufacturers are considering this future. After all, we have technologies today like GNU Radio and the HackRF One which have brought what was once the domain of the nation state to the general public.