Driverless trucks, game over?

Airlines fly themselves... Are there still pilots on board?

The Jobs going to change somewhat over the coming decade, but it won't go away.

You can pretty much be assured that when it starts it will be on the big rapids only. One will likely monitor it there and then take over to manually drive it on the surface streets to shipper and reciecers.

Just like Pilots still land the planes even though they are able to do it automatically.

 

Have you watched RoboCop? ))

 

Yup still need someone to babysit the load.... But pay and conditions will get worse .

 

This topic has been beat to death on here. I can't see it happening. Maybe on long hauls and specific routes. Far too many variables to have them run everywhere. What happens when they hit a deer, blow a tire or it breaks down? What happens if a radar sensor on the front becomes obstructed with mud? Snow comes and the truck needs to be chained up? Just far too much inconsistency in the job itself to be viable everywhere.

 

Better example, "I, Robot."

 

Try 90-100 years before our jobs are completely obsolete. They have to create a machine that can drive itself down any road in any weather conditions, load and unload freight, secure freight, deal with customers/brokers and do a mountain of paperwork... all the while predicting stupid four-wheeler's actions before they do them.

A self-driving truck will be doing runs on flat, dry interstates in the next 5-10 years, with a driver in the driver seat monitoring all it's actions. In the next 10-20 years, they will still be suffering through figuring out adverse weather conditions, especially ice and snow, and still won't be doing urban driving. In all that time, there will be tons of lawsuits involving injury and death with these things messing up and killing someone due to their weight (a self-driving car may or may not necessarily kill someone, an 80,000 lb truck will).

In the end, it's a waste of time, money and resources for them to develop self-driving trucks. They should be shifting focus to self-driving rail lines that move freight 24 hours a day without crossing paths with cars. That kind of system can be easily automated (I'm fairly certain a lot of it already is, beyond the train driving), and regional distribution can be handled by human drivers who do all the unloading anyways.

All this technology is just going to drive up the cost of goods and eliminate a whole ton of the workforce in North America... removing money from the economy.

 

It will happen, no doubt. But you will be retired by then.