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End of the road for truckers?

Sad to see some of those truckers who don't realize how quickly and easily they'll be replaced by technology.

This is setting up for a Republicans vs. Silicon Valley showdown in 2018 and 2020.
 
But you also gotta take moonz guardian and weird websites with a grain of salt. Ain't no truckers going anywhere anytime soon just look at the recent hurricane efforts for an example, if you prefer to dig deeper than clickbait
 
But you also gotta take moonz guardian and weird websites with a grain of salt. Ain't no truckers going anywhere anytime soon just look at the recent hurricane efforts for an example, if you prefer to dig deeper than clickbait

Lol
 
I've never seen this mentioned this anywhere but surely I've missed it:
What would fully-autonomous vehicles do to the airline industry? If I can key in where I want to go and pay for a parking spot in advance, my days of flying from RDU to NYC are over; leave around bedtime and wake up the next morning to the sun rising over the Hudson.
 
My company moves 100,000s of thousands of tons of bulk freight a year so I'm pretty interested in this
The take from a ground level, talking with trucking companies, is that this tech is coming, but it will be a long time before it comes (10 years or more) as the red tape is, predictably, going to be an enormous hurdle
Right now there is a drastic shortage of truck drivers, most are old guys that are close to or already retiring and relatively few young folks coming through the ranks (lots of immigrants). So if this does come sooner than expected, it would be as a lot of the trucking work force is phasing out anyway. A good truck driver easily pulls 50-60K/year and hazmat guys in the right areas can pull 6 figures. (and it's not like they have to work 70 hours a week to do this as they are limited to so many hours a week). Obviously, this is the kind of tech that will be phased in slowly. First automation will take place on big corporate campuses with intraplant transfers...relatively controlled places, low speed, etc...maybe expand outward from there to intercity, dedicated lanes (same thing over and over again), then finally to over-the-road. I've also heard that once it gets over the road most of the driving will be automated, but either they'll have remote pilots to drive trucks once they arrive, or that plants will have "pilots" to take the driverless trucks from a predetermined staging area, to wherever it needs to go to get loaded then back and send it on its way (kind of a similar way that harbor pilots work for ships)
 
That's an excellent point, Down East. It could certainly impact shuttles that would only require one tank of gas. I'm just not sure the pricing would be competitive. Depends on the markdown with fewer labor costs.

bacon, thanks for your insights.

What gets me from an industry perspective is this crosses over so many different industries. Trucking, tech, public transit, automotive manufacturing, auto sales, ride sharing, rental cars, airlines, moving companies. A lot of lines will get blurred. Who wins and who loses? Will I be going point to point on my commute thanks to Uber? Tesla? Hertz? The local transit system?

There are many social issues to consider as well but I'll save that for another post.
 
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if I was a truck driver I'd listen to audio books non-stop, and would maybe finally have time to catch up on the 827382423 podcasts I have backlogged...this could be my future.
 
That's an excellent point, Down East. It could certainly impact shuttles that would only require one tank of gas. I'm just not sure the pricing would be competitive. Depends on the markdown with fewer labor costs.

bacon, thanks for your insights.

What gets me from an industry perspective is this crosses over so many different industries. Trucking, tech, public transit, automotive manufacturing, auto sales, ride sharing, rental cars, airlines, moving companies. A lot of lines will get blurred. Who wins and who loses? Will I be going point to point on my commute thanks to Uber? Tesla? Hertz? The local transit system?

There are many social issues to consider as well but I'll save that for another post.

Very true - and you forgot a couple big ones - auto insurance and mechanics. The auto insurance industry brings in over $220 billion in revenue, with well over $100 billion in claims.
 
I posted this in the Tunnels on a tax reform thread, but since Moonz started a thread for it I'll repost here.


Something else to consider: pretty much all economic growth in advanced economies at this point is coming from technology-based productivity gains. Populations in rich countries are stabilizing are even falling, which eliminates one primary source of economic growth (no new customers or workers). Capital stock is not increasing very much, probably because value is now held in computers, not steel mills. The next big boost in productivity is going to be driven by robots and AI. What happens to our society when self-driving cars and trucks happen?

I'll tell you what: a socio-political tsunami.

At the absolute height of coal mining, way back in 1923, there were 863,000 coal miners. in 1985 there were 175,000 or so, and now there are 65,000, so in recent memory 100,000 jobs were lost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_m..._1985-2015.png That was enough to decimate an entire state's economy and flip it from Democrat to Republican, not to mention create the epicenter of opioid addiction and disability fraud. Politicians obsess over coal miners and the plight of the coal miner was a significant reason behind the election of one Donald J. Trump. In other words, those 100,000 jobs are a big effing deal.

Well there are 8,700,000 trucking-related jobs in the US. 3.5 million people, mostly men, drive trucks for a living. Another million or so people drive taxis and ubers.https://medium.com/basic-income/self...k-b8507d9c5961

What are we going to do with 3 or 4 million unemployed men, who have no skills other than the ability to drive, and who are going to be totally unwilling and unequipped to take on jobs in the major growth industries (healthcare and tech)?

This is going to start hitting us right about the time these tax cuts have cranked the deficit to 100% of GDP and, I'm guessing, we're struggling to get out of the next recession.

Even assuming that all the rosy trickle down predictions are true this time unlike all the other times, does anybody thing that the jobs that are going to be created are going to be low-skill jobs that a few million uneducated drivers can jump right into?

I would suggest the US government keep its powder dry and its revenues plentiful, because this shit is coming and it is going to be a wild ride.
 
I hope Bacon is right and it is more of a slow transition. Even if it is, though, the loss of coal mining jobs and steel-making jobs and textile jobs was relatively slow too. Those things all played out over a decade or more, and they still caused huge economic dislocation, dissatisfaction, poverty, and populist anger.

A lot of smart people are betting big money that the self-driving auto is going to happen a lot faster.
 
Very true - and you forgot a couple big ones - auto insurance and mechanics. The auto insurance industry brings in over $220 billion in revenue, with well over $100 billion in claims.

Well if people no longer have to pay for auto insurance then that is one less excuse as to why they can't start paying for their own health insurance, right? Win-win.
 
Sounds great, being a human is no longer a skill, adapt reinvent or fade into the background as an irrelevant rube.
 
this is why we need more sci fi like Star Trek and less like Blade Runner. let's inject some hope into the future
 
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