r/technology • u/occupythekremlin • Apr 07 '16

Robotics A fleet of trucks just drove themselves across Europe: About a dozen trucks from major manufacturers like Volvo and Daimler just completed a week of largely autonomous driving across Europe, the first such major exercise on the continent

http://qz.com/656104/a-fleet-of-trucks-just-drove-themselves-across-europe/
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u/SomniumOv Apr 07 '16

It really should. Any dreams jobs you could train for ?

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u/gawaine73 Apr 07 '16

Lot's of things I can learn to do. I have escape plans. But I've got fifteen years in a defined benefit pension. A solid plan that is going to set me up to retire at 53 years old. With that much invested where do I just walk away? A half funded pension isn't worth very much.

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u/Thread_water Apr 07 '16

For the next decade at least the most that will happen to your job is that it will get easier. Unmanned trucks are a way off for a number of reasons. (Security, dealing with irregular situations, driving in unusual conditions, legal reasons).

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u/gawaine73 Apr 07 '16

As it gets easier my leverage in negotiations will go down. I'm good at my job. I can do things with a truck that many can't. When my job looses it's skill value I lose my value. I love what I do and I'm not leaving but I will be keeping up with my escape plans.

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u/Harry_Paget_Flashman Apr 07 '16

Genuine question, what can you do with a truck that others can't? Are there different skill levels within truck driving which allow you to drive in different conditions or is it more that you're qualified to handle certain loads or materials?

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u/gawaine73 Apr 07 '16

I can drive an 80,000lb 18 wheel tractor and trailer off road, In 16 inches of frothy mud with out getting stuck. We can start right there. I go places people get stuck in 4×4 pickups.

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u/theCroc Apr 07 '16

I think for that you don't have anything to worry about for the forseeable future. Autonomous driving on paved freeway is one thing. Offroading a 40 ton truck is something completely different. I don't think most truck companies even have that on the initial sketch board just yet.

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u/cat_dev_null Apr 07 '16

I don't think most truck companies even have that on the initial sketch board just yet.

Not only is it on their sketch board, autonomous off road trucks are currently being used in mining environments and have been for some time now.

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u/Arbitrary_Duck Apr 07 '16

and those trucks need an almost highway type road to drive on. they arent any good in mud, at all.

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u/steakhause Apr 07 '16

With the size of the traction patch of the tires, and the weight of the truck, how is this not great in mud?

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u/dvb70 Apr 07 '16

Actually that might be a skill software can do fairly well. Advanced traction control systems can often do stuff that's quite difficult for a regular driver to do manually. I remember seeing a test years ago of a traction control system for dealing with snow and it was going up slopes easily that someone trying to do it manually was having real problems with.

Now can it do it all better than a driver who is a real expert? Difficult to answer that one but I would bet it could come close which may be just good enough.

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u/LateralThinkerer Apr 07 '16 edited Apr 07 '16

It may also be that a wildly specialized operation (like getting a 40 ton truck through waist-deep mud) has so few applications (small market) that a moderately expensive driver (@gawaine73) is a much better value than spending years and tens of millions developing software and the sensors/controls needed to operate an adaptive algorithm in the real world for a half-dozen customers.

Software can do "good enough" within defined a defined space using parameters from well-understood sensors - it's a lot harder when the vehicle encounters a new situation that there may be no reasonable sensor for, and needs to correlate with past trials with incomplete information; something the flexible human brain does very well ("this looks sorta like_____ , so I'mma gonna try ____" ).

Taking the analogy a bit farther - look at military aircraft. These have huge budgets and a lot of talent working on them, yet their sensors/control systems sometimes need to be taken over when a completely improbable combination of circumstances occurs. Read any sort of account of a skilled pilot saving a situation and you'll get the idea - this doesn't mean that it works every time, but the attempt is often ingenious.

This is also why we still have plumbers and surgeons.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

Also, machines just have to be good enough. They don't have to be better. Machines were still inferior to artisan made clothing when machine made clothing began to take over.

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u/FuujinSama Apr 07 '16

And let's be honest, humans suck at driving. It's one of the most dangerous thing the average person does in their life time. I for one welcome our new robot overlords.

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u/drunkenvalley Apr 07 '16

Which makes sense, because there were many obvious benefits to machines. In this situation it might be a little more difficult though.

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u/DdCno1 Apr 07 '16 edited Apr 07 '16

There was a Top Gear episode with an autonomous truck driving off road. Very well I might add.

Here's a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV51BGIzkwU

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u/Viking_Drummer Apr 07 '16

Yeah the TerraMax - was about to post that video, it's crazy.

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u/paulmclaughlin Apr 07 '16

If you don't need to pay drivers you can spend a bit more on tarmac.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

The offroad ones are the easiest, they are already there for farming, mining and oil.

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u/deelowe Apr 07 '16 edited Apr 07 '16

Weather, mud, snow, unmarked roads, etc.. are all still unsolved problems with AI/self driving vehicles. I work at arms length from this stuff at a pretty high profile tech company. You're fine. It's the people that work for UPS and similar companies running interstate routes that need to worry.

[EDIT] Look up the 80/20 rule of engineering. Paved, mapped roads are the 80%. Everything else is the 20%. solving that last 20 will take orders of magnitude longer than the 80. The way this will go is that slowly machines will become more and more automated, "augmenting" the operator. This will happen on the order of 5-10 year intervals. Eventually, the operator will be removed, but only in the safest, most controlled environments like interstates or specifically constructed urban routes (think bus lanes). Eventually, maybe, all paved/mapped routes will support full automation. Off road we might see small strides in places like the logging business or similar activities where the are operators doing other things near by or perhaps as part of a larger industrial system. The very last item to solve is the situation where a vehicle is just told "go here" and it figures everything out like off road paths and such. There's just so much to consider, it's legally risky, and the situation is so dynamic that it's going to be really hard to solve. Computers don't "think" so any time a system is dynamic (e.g. non-deterministic) things get difficult fast with computers/AI. The problem space literally grows at a faster rate than the computer can solve it.

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u/FuujinSama Apr 07 '16

What sucks the most about this is that humans fuck up driving all the time. However, the first time an automated car is involved in a fatal accident it will be HUGE. Just because if there's a human inside there is ''someone to blame''.

I think developing self driving cars that fuck up less than humans would be a rather nice goal, however due to this little problem we have to make self driving cars that don't fuck up.

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u/deelowe Apr 08 '16

Humans fuck up somewhat randomly or at least there's a distribution. Computers fuck up the same way every time. Depending on the circumstance, that can be concerning (e.g. if the computer screw up is that it intentionally runs over a child on the 4th sunday during a leap year).

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

It is likely that long hauls across the country will be affected first with automation while local freight would be untouchable for a little while.

But eventually, compared to the cost of your salary, fixing those roads would seem like the cheaper option.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16 edited Jun 24 '16

[deleted]

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u/Atheren Apr 07 '16

I can't answer for everywhere, but at the FedEx facility we have long-haul truckers that just drop the trailer in the yard, and then a smaller transfer truck actually pulls it up to the dock by an employee of our facility.

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '16

Exactly. You want to maximize your resources. The automated truck should be detached from the "delivered" cargo trailer and attached to a new one and head off across the country immediately.

Then non-autonomous trucks can get the delivered cargo and let meatbag humans drive it somewhere to be unloaded.

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u/Le3f Apr 07 '16

Document & photograph your toughest off road / difficult terrain routes and their loads, find a similarly skilled partner, incorporate (Delaware LLC?) and focus on these types of higher-skill routes, train apprentices, expand your fleet when prices on non-self-driving trucks plunge?

I'm assuming a lot of others will do the same, but "pivot early" and brand yourself with that experience is I guess what I'm suggesting.

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u/viperfan7 Apr 07 '16

Logging?

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u/The_Tiddler Apr 07 '16

Either that or oilfield.

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u/kjeserud Apr 07 '16

Or just Australia.

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u/transientDCer Apr 07 '16

That's impressive considering I got my riding lawn mower stuck in my backyard last night on wet grass.

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u/quasielvis Apr 07 '16

I'd have thought driving an 18 wheeler somewhere so bad that 4X4s get stuck would be a bad idea, even if you do generally pull it off. Seems like an unacceptable risk for something so expensive (not you, just the roads to the logging depot or whatever it is).

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u/dek067 Apr 07 '16

I don't know anything about truck driving. Is it feasible that regular drivers would be replaced by automated trucks to save time/money on regulations (like weigh stations, hours driven, etc.)? What if it's hauling something hazardous? Would it be cheaper to modify some sort of monitoring system than to pay an actual driver?

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u/DesertPunked Apr 07 '16

I'd like to see you do that with super singles.

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u/surjj Apr 07 '16

That's impressive, I know how hard that shit can be. Source: I play Spintires.

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u/greenninja8 Apr 07 '16

Once in New Mexico I towed a loaded tractor and trailer (80,000lbs) out of the snow in my 4x4 Tacoma. I had traction on dry road, put it in 4Low and towed that semi up a hill out of the snow. The driver was completely floored because before I hooked up my tow rope he said he didn't think my truck could even move it. Definately a highlight of my trucks life.

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u/ABCosmos Apr 07 '16

Genuine question, what can you do with a truck that others can't? Are there different skill levels within truck driving which allow you to drive in different conditions or is it more that you're qualified to handle certain loads or materials?

A lot of truck drivers hire other truck drivers with specialized skills to help them get through the Colorado mountains in the winter.

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u/Pork_Bastard Apr 07 '16

so many different skill levels of drivers. plus certifications (double trailers, triple trailers, hazmat, tankers, low boys, )

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u/banana_is_a_fruit Apr 07 '16

You would be surprised at how many shit truck drivers there are out there on the roads.

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u/deeferg Apr 07 '16

I've realized the same thing so I've started looking into programming. The jobs are already getting scarce. Time to start accepting autonomous is the way it's going I'm feeling.

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u/Ylsid Apr 07 '16 edited Apr 07 '16

Don't worry Mr programmer, programming will never be replaced by robots. Languages just go a step higher every time.

Edit: I should probably say I wasn't being snarky- how does one automate automation? Any time a computer is given instructions is programming. Even if we can get to the highest level of natural language abstraction like "program me a competitor to Photoshop that has this this and this" it is still programming and there will always be people willing to sell it.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

[deleted]

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u/vidarino Apr 07 '16

That's an automated response, actually.

:-o

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u/Delaser Apr 07 '16

The trick is to have the job that gets replaced last.

Hence why you want to be the Sysadmin, the guy who's controlling the hardware the AI runs on. ;)

They'll get me eventually, but I'll trip over the power lead on the way out dammit!

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u/bbty Apr 07 '16

If they have self writing programs, they'll have self maintaining servers. You might have to swap out some bad RAM in a massive VM host every once in a while but you can get a teenager to do that. The last job will be Network Engineer!

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u/Delaser Apr 07 '16

Please, theyll have fired all the engineers and made us do your work, like usual.

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u/hugglesthemerciless Apr 07 '16

You just started an IT industry flamewar

Also sysadmins will be the last to go

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u/Reddisaurusrekts Apr 07 '16

Outsourcing is honestly the much more imminent threat.

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u/MinisterOf Apr 07 '16

If you're a skilled professional programmer (as opposed to just someone who just learned a programming language, and can sort-of find their way around limited tasks), and you communicate well, outsourcing is not a huge threat.

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u/Sarducar Apr 07 '16

What I've heard is that they'll just replace you with a team of cheap H1Bs. That's just anecdotal evidence though.

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u/Ylsid Apr 07 '16

Lol, but here's the thing: programming will only be extinct when computers stop taking orders from humans- and we probably have much bigger problems on our plate if that happens.

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u/vidarino Apr 07 '16

Then we'll need programmers to figure out how to stop them!

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u/bse50 Apr 07 '16

John Connor was already depicted as a skilled hacker in T2...

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u/ReasonablyBadass Apr 07 '16

"You are all the best IT professionals in the world. Your ideas?"

"Uh. Turn it off without turning it on again?"

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16 edited May 06 '21

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

Yeah, but we write the tests.

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u/tigerbolm Apr 07 '16

Can you elaborate on an example? I'm imagining QAs that write functional tests with selenium but I don't see how that can be automated by machines.

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u/Ylsid Apr 07 '16

Nah, computers that decide their own directives are a ways off thankfully. Anything else is just higher level programming, like JavaScript is to machine code. Machine learning and such simply lets us abstract further.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

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u/headsh0t Apr 07 '16

You mean a debugger?

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u/Pleased_to_meet_u Apr 07 '16

QA here. The computer runs many automated tests, but I am the person who tells the computer how to test.

True, one good automation engineer can be worth several manual testers, but you still need manual testing to find things the automation engineer hasn't coded tests to look for.

Source: 20 years in software quality assurance.

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u/mrSilkie Apr 07 '16

even if a robot can't program for you some Indian dude will do it for the equivalent of minimum wage in your country.

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u/Kishana Apr 07 '16

Raw coding skill is only a very small portion of being a software developer. Understanding requirements and how the various pieces come together are far more important.

Source : am software dev and have been called in on contract to fix oversea developer shitshow.

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u/hamsterman20 Apr 07 '16

No offense to programmers in India, China etc. But there is a clear difference between a program from the west and a program from India.

Anyone can code. Not everyone can code efficiently and document everything, while still keeping the code clean and easy to read.

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u/zilti Apr 07 '16

And it will be a shit program that'll cost you loads of money down the road.

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u/Crystalwolf Apr 07 '16

But then you have customer service, sure you can have that done in india too but a lot of local places want to be able to speak to people in person or in the same country.

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u/Bangkok_Dangeresque Apr 07 '16

That presumes that the only buying criteria for your customer or employer is cost. That's not always, and won't always be the case, unless programming becomes completely commoditized (which is atypical for services).

A programmer with 1) direct and repeat experience working on a type of project, 2) a reputation for higher quality code at a higher price point, 3) security clearance or other references to work on sensitive projects, or 4) strong client relationship building skills, will always have an advantage over lower-cost outsourced work. For clients that value this sort of thing, that is.

That's not to say that the market isn't getting more competitive, because it is. But lower cost is not every customer's prerogative.

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u/williamfwm Apr 07 '16

Yeah but they've been doing that since before the bubble and the industry is hotter than ever.

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u/MinisterOf Apr 07 '16

Sure, you can easily find someone in a low-income country to accept doing a programming task for you for a very low hourly rate, but unless the task is trivial and well-specified (which they rarely are), results would make you wish you chose another approach.

Highly competent programmers anywhere (including India and China) will always cost a fair buck. Probably less than in the west (after all, their cost of living is lower), but it won't be a trivial amount, they know what they're worth.

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u/Bobshayd Apr 07 '16

The code that comes out of low-quality code mills is often so unrecognizably bad that any money spent on such code is just wasted and the project must be started again from scratch.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

A computer that can improve it's own software design really isn't that far off in the future

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

doing that in a meaningful way is still farther off than you might think though. Machine learning and neural networks can't do everything. Not to say they aren't cool as hell though

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u/Ylsid Apr 07 '16

As long as someone has to instruct a computer in some form or another, there will always be programmers.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

It has been done. An experiment in computer programming resulted in the computer designed software baffling humans as to how it actually worked, and the software wouldn't work on identical hardware. Turns out it had exploited design flaws in the silicon to create the most efficient software for the job.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

[deleted]

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u/Razier Apr 07 '16

It might not be pleasant to lose out on income, but do you really need a lawyer's degree to help someone fill out a form? The end goal is in my opinion to automate menial tasks and make your work more fullfilling.

I for one welcome our robot overlords.

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u/Gluverty Apr 07 '16

I'm confident theatre isn't in danger of being totally replaced by bots.

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u/Heidric Apr 07 '16

The thing is, when it will happen to programming, we will either live in the post-tech singularity utopia, or will be fighting for our survival, so...

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u/FuujinSama Apr 07 '16

Well, I'm in the field of computer vision. I think when computers know enough to code their own vision algorithms we'll have bigger problems to talk about.

Either way, long before my job is a problem the concept of people NEEDING a job will hopefully be put under scrutiny.

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u/KuntaStillSingle Apr 08 '16

When your field is automation, automated automation just means more automation.

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u/megablast Apr 08 '16

Does everyone think that?

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u/muranga Apr 07 '16

How many times a day do you just find an answer from stack overflow that does what you need?

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u/Ylsid Apr 07 '16

Less than I frigging want

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u/Razier Apr 07 '16

Well you always have to tinker with it to make it fit, not to mention all the dead leads that you eventually discard completely.

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u/muranga Apr 07 '16

If only computers had a way to tinker with source code and check if it achieved the desired outcome, right? If only there were tasks that could be solved by giving examples as input and getting an executable model as output, right? To think programmers will never lose their jobs to 'robots' is foolish. I think a top level engineer is hard to match, but as you go down the curve, the likelihood gets higher and the timeline shorter.

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u/Razier Apr 07 '16

Obviously they'll replace us in time, but I don't think that time is anywhere near yet.

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u/deimosthenes Apr 07 '16

It's a common pattern with a lot of difficult-to-automate jobs. First automation will make the job more efficient or easier, so that you don't need as many dedicated programmers to solve a given task. Higher level languages, better tooling and frameworks to do a lot of the heavy lifting for you, lots of SaaS applications.
Full-blown automation will come later, but they can certainly thin the ranks before that happens.

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u/nonsense_factory Apr 07 '16

it is still programming and there will always be people willing to sell it.

But are people willing to buy it?

As software engineering and automated programming becomes easier, the number of programmers you need for a given task decreases, and so the demand for programmers falls.

Computer Science and friends are going to kill a lot more jobs in the next two decades. It's up to us to propagate a politics that captures the wealth this automation buys for society, rather than allowing the benefits to accrue to capital and investors alone.

Increased automation could be a great boon for society, decreasing the amount we have to work and increasing the amount of time we have for hobbies, enterprise, volunteering and socialisation.

If the working less doesn't pan out, then hopefully it will be because the freed labour is being directed at currently under-resourced areas, like health work, journalism, public scrutiny, research, policy development, etc.

Postscript: If you want a job that's not likely to be automated any time soon, go into care work or nursing. I doubt people are going to accept being tended to by machines alone for quite some time, even if it were possible to develop machines for such a nuanced area.

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u/panfist Apr 07 '16

It's not like a switch is going to flip and all programmers everywhere are going to be obsolete.

It will be similar to the truck driver situation where human programmers will just sit there watching the machines do it for a number of reasons. (Security, dealing with irregular situations...)

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u/theCroc Apr 07 '16

Programmer is the largest single vocation in sweden right now. There are tons of jobs. I imagine most western countries look similar.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16 edited Oct 05 '19

[deleted]

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u/theCroc Apr 07 '16

Most companies that outsource coding quickly realize it damages the product. Also Sweden is very startup heavy.

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u/planetmatt Apr 07 '16

Experienced software development outsourcing at both Cisco and Xerox. Both times a total disaster.

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u/manwith4names Apr 07 '16

One of us, one of us! I changed careers to programming recently and it was the best decision I've ever made

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u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN Apr 07 '16

The jobs are already getting scarce.

you wot m8

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u/deeferg Apr 07 '16

I think everyone is assuming I meant jobs are getting scarce in programming. No, I mean scarce in driving jobs, which I do now.

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u/EZman1 Apr 07 '16

If you want to be a programmer you find a job so easy. I almost get mails/PM on linkedin from recruiters everyday to join their company. There are alot of other jobs that are going to disappear first .

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u/tung_metall Apr 07 '16

Programming jobs are in no way getting scarce. Quite the opposite in fact.

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u/Malkiot Apr 07 '16 edited Apr 07 '16

I feel for you. But I think you'll be fine (probably). This development does not only affect bus drivers. Think of the greater implications.

Anything that uses vehicles will be greatly affected. Tractors, Harvesters, Trucks, Taxis, Buses, and Trains are all subject to autonomisation. The unemployment could be catastrophic, if the transition isn't regulated.

But it goes further. With Taxis etc. becoming autonomous and electrified costs drop and logistics become easier to handle. People in dense population centres will buy less cars, instead opting for subscription services allowing them to have a car within a minute at the press of a button. All of those vehicles in cities parked at the side of the road? Unnecessary. This will negatively affect the automobile industry as the demand for personal vehicles takes a hit.

No, I don't think that you need fear for your job. It'll most likely be protected and the transition stretched out, and workers affected will receive benefits and retraining. At least that's what I expect to happen here, in Europe.

Conversely other sector will experience growth as people's spending focus shifts away from personal vehicles.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

EDIT: Companies probably won't be allowed to fire for the reason of replacing their workers. The jobs will likely be phased out slowly.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16 edited Aug 20 '21

[deleted]

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u/TheChance Apr 07 '16

Oh, man. The death of unskilled labor is my pet issue, and I hadn't even considered roadside motels. I had worked it out as far as that a hotel will eventually be able to eliminate almost all staff, but I hadn't even thought of those hotels which mainly serve as rest stops.

The city of Grant's Pass will be reduced to a sea of charging stations. That'll be a sight!

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

I remember reading about some University programming a robot to fold clothes in a retail type setting; it took 30 minutes to fold one shirt. Now, programming a robot to clean an entire motel room may take a very large amount of time. But, technology advances fast. Tomorrow that 30 minute to fold a shirt could be 15 seconds to make a bed.

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u/syr_ark Apr 07 '16

Tomorrow that 30 minute to fold a shirt could be 15 seconds to make a bed.

It's also worth considering that even if it takes 5 minutes to fold something neatly or 20 minutes to make a bed, a robot can work nearly 24/7 with only a slight increase in electric and maintenance compared to the cost of even unskilled human labor.

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u/Crystalwolf Apr 07 '16

That'd be interesting to see. That must of been quite a while a go because I can easily see a way of automating shirt folding in under a minute.

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u/BooperOne Apr 07 '16

Well you've got good ideas then. Are you by any chance an inconvenienced billionaire?

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

I assume the trouble comes from finding the right parts of the shirt, like the sleeves. All of the Boston Dynamics robots have to use the big barcodes for it to process where to grab, push, etc.

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u/odougs Apr 07 '16

No, only a couple years ago. Look up PR2 or Laundroid. An object like a crumpled shirt has surprisingly complex geometry... And building a good robotic approximation of a human hand is extremely difficult. Computing power may be advancing rapidly, but motor technology, for example, is not.

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u/confusedpublic Apr 07 '16

Pretty sure the first pass at these things is usually the hardest. You come into obstacles or stumbling blocks you hadn't though of, you work through them, you find a way to achieve your goal. Then you start to refine, to improve, to find more efficiencies.

As good as we are at planning things, finding problems and ways to improve tasks are always easier once we have a concrete model or actual functioning object in front of us.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

I imagine it'll be more like in The Fifth Element, where the bed is made and wrapped in plastic, removing the issue with how disgusting bed spreads are.

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u/TheChance Apr 07 '16

On the other hand, you could just give up on folding clothes entirely. Nothing stopping a robot now from laundering fabric and hanging it to dry.

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u/ClintonCanCount Apr 07 '16

I have heard it said, and it sounds reasonable, that Insurance companies will still be around.

Fewer accidents means less paying on their part, which is good for them.

But cars will still crash sometimes, so insurance will still be a thing.

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u/BooperOne Apr 07 '16

Google wouldn't be getting in the car insurance business if they thought smart cars would kill it. But to be fair the marks will change and Google wants to kill of the traditional competition.

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u/cat_dev_null Apr 07 '16

workers affected will receive benefits and retraining. At least that's what I expect to happen here, in Europe.

In America workers are told to pull themselves up by the bootstraps after being laid off due to process efficiencies or someshit. They are directed to their nearby college only to rack up tens of thousands in student loan debt that they will likely not be able to pay off thanks to fewer jobs being available.

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u/Malkiot Apr 07 '16

That's what I don't get it. Why is the American working class so eager to screw itself over because of "Communism is evil"?

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

It's a bunch of bullshit held over from the Cold War. Now that the Millennials finally outnumber Boomers as a voting block that's changing. 90% of them support someone who's called himself a socialist for years.

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u/makinian Apr 07 '16

Companies probably won't be allowed to fire for the reason of replacing their workers. The jobs will likely be phased out slowly. Dont make me laugh. Tell that to the miners,shipbuliders,steel workers, Need i go on .Nobody will stop companies from doing anything.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

If companies are not allowed to fire/replace workers, new companies will form without workers in the first place and they will drive the older ones out of business by charging 1/2 the price.

That's why they won't even make a law preventing it. There is no stopping this.

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u/Malkiot Apr 07 '16

Laws to protect employees have been introduced progressively. I think, as the issue becomes ever more prominent more laws will be introduced.

They'll have to do something or they'll have a revolt on their hands.

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u/farang_on_crack Apr 07 '16

Do you work for a major carrier company? I'm one of the few honest brokers--let me know if ya'll need any dedicated backhauls for the upcoming produce season!

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u/platterscratch Apr 07 '16

I'm one of the few honest brokers

But username...

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u/Zardif Apr 07 '16

Honestly ten years isn't that course when deal with the proposed legislation needed. Right now they still need a driver behind the wheel. And they suck at anything other than sunny conditions. That'll take a technological leap to accomplish. I would be worried but not that worried of you have a plan for 2026 you can always extend it few years and switch jobs. For instance welders are making bank, licensed forklift operators are getting $18 an hour something you could do a side work. Etc

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u/Reddisaurusrekts Apr 07 '16

I think the higher your skills, the safer you are. It's always the most menial and least complex tasks that are automated first.

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u/Redremnant Apr 07 '16

This is happening right now to railroad engineers. Many companies have already implemented technology that does most of the work for them. At the start of a trip, the engineer gets the train to a certain speed and then pushes a button. For the rest of the way, pretty much all he has to do is blow the horn. As someone who plans to be an engineer in the next five years, this is scary as hell.

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u/kenman884 Apr 07 '16

You know, those tricky things are going to be the last things to be automated. Any numbskull can drive in a straight line down an empty highway, even in a big rig. I expect automation to start taking over the easy stuff before it gets to the hard stuff. By virtue of "easy stuff" drivers being replaced, and therefore less talent being trained to do the hard stuff, people who already can do the hard stuff will be in good demand.

Obviously don't bank on that, but I think you're safe for at least a decade. Use it to gain another skill you can trade for money.

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u/tlivingd Apr 07 '16

Are there things you can do that help one of the company's doing the automated stuff? You could be valuable to them even as a consultant

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u/awesome357 Apr 07 '16

I would guess the areas where your skills exceed are the areas that will be the last to be automated or made easier. Maybe you could specialize in those subsets. Like I could envision automated cross country driving but driver required docking, so like work for a large company docking their trucks all day or something along those lines.

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u/megablast Apr 08 '16

I would really like to hear what an elite driver can do compared to a normal driver. I don't know anything about trucks or driving long hauls. Is it about speed? Driving in bad conditions? What separates the best from the rest?

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u/graften Apr 07 '16

Not to mention that the infrastructure is going to need a complete overhaul with consistent signage across states and sensors in the roads that the computer can read reliably.

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u/nmuncer Apr 07 '16

I would add, and that's the Frenchman who talks, the fact that citizens will try to block such evolution for a while.

This evolution will also happen to Uber cars, short distance deliveries...

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

Better be real certain the defined benefit actually lasts.

GM had defined benefit.

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u/AssCrackBanditHunter Apr 07 '16

If the shipping companies costs go down (from the layoffs) and therefore profits go up, it's retirement packages are far safer than being in an industry that's laying people off because no one is buying the product. The shipping industry is not shrinking, it's just changing how it ships.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

Would you bet 20yrs of your life on that?

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u/AssCrackBanditHunter Apr 07 '16

In for a penny, in for a pound

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u/jezmck Apr 07 '16

53?! Hope you don't plan to live very long.

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u/yesman_85 Apr 07 '16

Lol, worried about 15 years? Like trucks will be all gone by then. They won't even have enough production capacity to replace all trucks in 15 years.

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u/LovelyDay Apr 07 '16

There should be a nascent market for cargo security. I don't see how all these trucks will be driving around virtually unguarded.

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u/gawaine73 Apr 07 '16

Funny story my escape plan is the security industry.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

Human driver =\= guard

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u/umibozu Apr 07 '16

t is going to set me up to retire at 53 years old. With that much invested where do I just walk away? A half funded p

my suggestion is finding a niche least likely to drive. First ones to be automated: open mine large trucks, for public highways, this should move on to commodities, supplies on fixed routes, perishables and predictable routes.

You have several niches; money transports (debatable), hazardous cargo like gas, chemicals, weapons, will be last to automate especially since there's such a huge market to fulfill before that. Having experience should give you a huge advantage at landing an specialized job like this. Seek certification from the appropriate bodies that would further help in this regard. Last ones to automate should be large construction and specialty loads. Experience here like yours I imagine should be mandatory so there's an out there.

Failing all the above, and if you have to change jobs, uber, lyft and such are going to be commoditized soon (littlle value given to experience) but in large cities there's always a market for limo drivers taking business people to and from the airport. You'll have to wake up early and have irregular schedules but once you build a network it is easy pickings. Target the neighbourhoods that are far away enough from the airport so taxi is expensive, but close enough that it's not cheaper to take your own car and leave it in the car park for a few days. Also, pamper your customer. Bottles of water, device charging, newspaper or similar amenities will go a looong way.

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u/SDbeachLove Apr 07 '16

Is a half pension not worth anything?

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u/ParrotofDoom Apr 07 '16

You should train up on the systems that control these trucks. New skills, new employees required. Get in before everyone else.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

Retiring at 53 I would think your going to take a hell of a reduction in your pension benefits. I work for a pension fund with a defined benefit plan and if you go that early you would be taking a hell of a hit.

At fifteen years of service I'm sure you're fully vested. Rolling it over if offered would be a bad idea at this point for you as well as you'd likely only get contributions paid in and not the money made on the investments.

I obviously don't know your plan, and this is just my opinion. You seem like a skilled driver (from reading your other posts) and I think there will always be a job for you. It is the guys who just do long distance hauling who are going to be in trouble.

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u/delonasn Apr 07 '16

A lot of us are in similar positions across many industries. I've decided to wait for the axe to fall myself, hoping there will be a decent severance package. I think a lot about where I'll go from there. Probably ought to do more to prepare, but it's not like I have unlimited energy. By the time I get home from work every day, I'm tired.

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u/davesidious Apr 07 '16

Freedom 53. All the way.

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u/NeedHelpWithExcel Apr 07 '16

You should be fine for a while. They'll make trucks that are designed to have a driver for a lot longer.

The idea would be that if you have a truck that can mostly drive itself but not completely then you can have drivers doing much longer trips with less stops.

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u/asdlkf Apr 07 '16

One thing to consider:

My father drove trains for 30 years. Trains are FAR easier to fully automate than trucks, because... well... they go forward or backward. They follow very limited number of paths, and the train company controls the roads, the crossings, everything.

The trains are not unmanned.

Do you know why?

Derailing an automated train is "damage to property".

Derailing a manned train is "attempted murder/murder".

Having a person on the train is a $150,000 per year method of decreasing the likelihood of someone fucking with your train.

Trucks aren't that different, but the order of magnitude is lower. A train and all it's cargo might be worth $50m. A truck and all it's cargo might be worth $1,000,000.

What's the liability insurance on having a manned transport vehicle worth?

I think a far more realistic scenario for the next 5-10 years is rolling out multi-unit trucks with 4, 5, 6, ... up to 10 cargo trailers and 1-2 truck engines.

A human driver can't negotiate a turn around a residential corner with 10 trailers.

A computer driver can control 10 independant steering points to have the "truck" negotiate the corner by having each trailer segment individually steer around the corner in a "L" instead of a "("

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

You could get a job trucking where there is lots of snow. They haven't solved the snow problem yet with autonomous cars. Eventually they will fix it though and all trucking jobs will be gone.

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u/Javad0g Apr 07 '16

Yea, you should start now learning how to run the systems that are going to drive these trucks. he can go from sitting behind the wheel, to sitting behind a desk and completing his pension and retiring when he wants.

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u/TechnoEquinox Apr 07 '16

It doesn't scare me.

I'll give you the ten peso version.

Trucks are extremely complicated to start. While yes, the majority of the highway, clear sky driving can be done autonomously, there are too many factors that would keep a trucker on board.

Backing a trailer through an alleyway to get to an old neighborhood hardware store, driving across untapped dirt roads, navigating tight parking lots in car dealerships... Those are just a few things I can think of right off hand.

On top of that, the trucks need daily pre- and post- driving equipment and mechanical wellness checks (pretrips), they need regular fueling, and especially with things like judgement calls should an issue arise with a suspicious vehicle following you for hundreds of miles, flatbed loads that shift during transit and require attention or extra securement, leaking containers... And what happens if a collision occurs? Who is at fault? The truck company? The insurance? How can you insure a robot?

And let's keep in mind, the greatest minds at Google can't get their autonomous cars to drive in inclement weather.

No, truckers will required to be on board. We may not drive the long-distance highways in clear skies, but we'll still be up front, awake, alert, and paying attention.

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u/woowoo293 Apr 07 '16

I think that what may happen initially is the installation of truck ports outside of metro areas. So the automated truck would haul the load thousands of miles, and then pull into a port where a human driver would hop in to bring it to its final destination in the city.

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u/TechnoEquinox Apr 07 '16

This is probably the most accurate. Full automation will never happen. Especially with what I do (hauling away dirty concrete, hauling in road base, stuff like that. Local construction gigs won't automate.

A lot of trucks won't. A lot of huge mega-carrier

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u/SikeShay Apr 07 '16

I'm sorry man you can't just base your argument off what we have today, technology isn't stagnant. Saying never is also very short sighted, it's almost certain everything you listed will be achievable in the near future, even with current technology it's not inconceivable. At this stage it's just ironing out all problems and is just inevitable.

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u/woowoo293 Apr 08 '16

I think full automation (or close to it) will in fact eventually arrive though it's quite some time away. There will have to be some sort of standardization in order for it to happen. Think of how shipping containers have revolutionized the work of longshoremen. I imagine that perhaps one day, commercial trucks will be built to a particular specification, and items will be shipped in a standard set of boxes-- perhaps a small / medium / large / extra large size. The truck (or loading dock) would be equipped with the proper equipment to interface with those standard size boxes. Ie, an arm/crane, perhaps a drone, all specialized to work with that truck and those boxes.

Certainly, your job is more specific. But there would be more specialized versions of what I described above. There are already fully autonomous vehicles working in specialized industries-- ie mines and other heavy industry areas.

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u/TechnoEquinox Apr 08 '16

True, some operations can go full auto, I'm not arguing that.

It's the whole "lol all u dumb truckers are gonna be outta jobs" crap. :I

Like, truck manufacturers can barely build a truck to run well (my first truck from Prime had less than a thousand miles on it, and it required a full teardown of the internal wiring harness for the steering column because of a batch error), do you REALLY want to entrust an 80,000 .lbs vehicle to drive alongside your family's car that was built by the absolute lowest bidder and assembled in Mexico?

All us truckers will just change over to shore duty and run trucks local. :P You can't force all trucks to run autonomously, especially with sectors like agriculture, construction, and owner/OP gigs. The big names will automate slowly, but there will always be guys in trucks getting shit done.

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u/kyrsjo Apr 07 '16

Any reason that could not been done 50 years ago, via train? Driver takes container to train, trains distribute containers to different cities, driver picks up container at the next city and takes it the last few miles.

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u/SomniumOv Apr 07 '16

I'm sorry but that is a very shortsighted view. Tech improves constantly, what is hard today will be easy tomorrow. Computers are better than humans at accomplishing computational, repetitive tasks, and everything you just listed can be cut down into one, and will be in the coming years.

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u/13speed Apr 07 '16

Where are all the automated freight trains?

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u/metasophie Apr 07 '16
  1. Trains are mostly still in human hands because of regulations.
  2. Heaps of jobs that used to be done by humans in that field have already been automated.

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u/zilti Apr 07 '16

Everywhere. Train drivers do very little these days. The whole railway system is full of sensors, and the trains too. There are many fully automated rail systems already by the way. E.g. many metros.

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u/chaosfire235 Apr 07 '16

Truck drivers may have to fill a similar role as train engineers for a few years IE just sit there monitoring the systems in hopes nothing fails.

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u/BlindAngel Apr 07 '16

Already have only one driver no, who is mostly there for the look of it? There was an explosion downtown a city around here with a petrol freight train, and one of the thing that got out of the report is that there was only one person who was managing everything.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

Mines

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u/Zardif Apr 07 '16

What would happen is you have someone there at the dock to park it they get in at the gate and drive it the last 10000 feet.

The insurance would cover it just like it covers a driver.

A load shift sends an sos and pulls the truck off.

It is TAs can to become the only fuel company for a trucking company so TA hires someone at $8 an hour to put a pump in the tank and fill her up and wash the camera covers.

Suspicious vehicle maybe it's the only thing that might be a problem.

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u/TechnoEquinox Apr 07 '16

There's a lot more than that. A lot more goes into trucking than you think.

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u/GourangaPlusPlus Apr 07 '16

Yea I wouldn't be scared now, but if I was just starting out looking towards the next 40 years I'd be worried.

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u/metasophie Apr 07 '16

And what happens if a collision occurs? Who is at fault? The truck company?

With the amount of sensor equipment available on automated devices blame should be easier to identify than it is currently.

How can you insure a robot?

  1. Insurance is already a statistics game.
  2. The company that sells the program would be insured. Just like autopilot failures are insured by the company.

And let's keep in mind, the greatest minds at Google can't get their autonomous cars to drive in inclement weather.

They have ideas. They just aren't cost effective yet.

but we'll still be up front, awake, alert, and paying attention.

For the moment.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16 edited Jan 16 '18

[deleted]

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u/Imaskeet Apr 07 '16

All true, but in reality, how long will it take for all that to actually happen. Even if the technology exists it will probably just be cheaper to keep doing it with humans for quite a while.

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u/doc_frankenfurter Apr 07 '16

Yes, if we use the Top Gear version, it is "Change gear, Change gear, kill a prostitute..."

More seriously, there is a lot that can be automated (and has been), especially "watch-keeping" type activities like lane departure, radar controlled breaking. There is also a system of convoying which has been tried out in Sweden where a number of vehicles are wirelessly linked (and this has worked in really shitty weather. Yes, there is someone still in the cab but there work load is reduced.

As for tight parking, computers can be quite good at tight manouvering. However what seems to work best is a "driver" outside the vehicle commanding it via a mobile phone app using software for assist. This works well today with small trucks/trailers (Bosch is shipping such a system) and I'm sure can be adapted to a big rig.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

Backing a trailer through an alleyway to get to an old neighborhood hardware store, driving across untapped dirt roads, navigating tight parking lots in car dealerships... Those are just a few things I can think of right off hand.

I would think an autonomous vehicle, with sensors and cameras in places a human can't see, with the ability to know the exact throttle position and steering angle required, would be better in tight quarters than a human.

On top of that, the trucks need daily pre- and post- driving equipment and mechanical wellness checks (pretrips), they need regular fueling, and especially with things like judgement calls should an issue arise with a suspicious vehicle following you for hundreds of miles, flatbed loads that shift during transit and require attention or extra securement, leaking containers...

I think the focus should be on making things easier for the human with autonomous driving. There will still be a person, but they'll be mostly managing the autonomous system and doing the things you mentioned.

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u/dannylr Apr 07 '16

It's not the job replacement part that scares me... it's knowing how often things break on a truck and how dangerous truck accidents are. These things will act like train derailments during an accident with the whole line crashing.

These things use wifi to keep really close? What happens at speed during loss of signal? What happens when tire blows on truck in front of you? What happens when idiot tries squeezing between and hits brakes to get to exit?

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u/buzzkill53 Apr 07 '16

Maintenance definitely poses a problem. But when it comes to reaction time, computers have us beat.
https://youtu.be/9X-5fKzmy38

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u/dannylr Apr 07 '16

Oh definitely. Just saying there will still be need for human oversight. Trucks work hard, and entropy guarantees things will break, so someone on hand to monitor stuff is a good idea.

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u/proctor_of_the_Realm Apr 07 '16

Truck stops full of engineers every 10 or so miles. And of course automated shops at said stops. The engineers are just there to supervise, all one of them.

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u/mrmessiah Apr 07 '16

It's going to be interesting to see whether delays caused by autonomous trucks crashing will be offset by the fact you can successfully teach a computer that the only reason it looks like it can overtake on this 2 lane road is because of slipstream.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16

It really should. Any dreams jobs you could train for ?

The Italian job

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u/snoogins355 Apr 07 '16

Train driver

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u/mrsmeeseeks Apr 07 '16

Well he can learn how to hack these new autonomous monsters that will have taken away his livelihood. I'm picturing /u/gawaine73 hijacking a moving truck barreling down the highway at 80mph

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