Autonomous Trucks

I hope my job does get automated out of existence some day. Frankly I think technological progress is agonizingly slow as it is, even though it is very fast by historical standards right now. I was hoping to be living on the Moon or Mars by now but you know, us hoomons and our silly problems.

 

Something I haven't seen pointed out yet is... Sure ships and aircraft are heavily automated and still require a person to monitor it. But you're not taking into count that their jobs are in danger as well. It is a lot easier to automate airplanes and ships, and it was the lack of computing power that was keeping us from automating cars / trucks. Now we have the computing power and soon full automation will take over everywhere. Including air and sea. It makes more sense to start on the ground where we can have more control. If there is a malfunction with a fully automated land vehicle, and if programmed correctly, it can just come to a stop and someone can just go and retrieve it. Same if it happens at sea but the retrieval will be more difficult and costly. In the air, well now that's a lot of damage and heaven forbid death. So from my point of view it's coming, and drivers will likely be out of a job but not for a while. I'm thinking somewhere around 10 maybe 20 or so years if we are lucky, and there will be a period of time where we are only there as a backup.

 

I think a bigger problem is that places like Manhattan will be under water in a few decades. (Not necessarily a bad thing some might argue. No but seriously...)

 

But an airliner does not have to worry about a deer jumping out in front of it either. Or a 4 wheeler doing something stupid.

 

What, you were going to swerve for a deer?

In other news,

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-02-passenger-carrying-drone-dubai.html#jCp

 

No but they have to avoid other planes. And guess what on newer planes the autopilot already does that. And terrain avoidance.
As for dealing with stupid 4 wheelers. Most things that a human driver can anticipate a computer can react fast enough to avoid. Google's can is proof of that. Sure the Google car has been in a few accidents but they were unavoidable.
The automated vehicle is coming, the best thing we can do is expect it and adapt when it arrives. It would be smart to plan for the arrival sooner than later.

 

Because the boss said if you are late again , "Your Fired". Or the concert you paid 375$ a seat each for you and these soposed ladies , started 30 mins ago.

 

Only 42 accidents in 5 years . With 9 test cars . A company with 9 trucks have that many accidents in that short of time would very likely be close to being shut down.

 

I was never late in 27 years of working an office job. Never had to speed to get there either.

Try getting out of bed on time. Really works.

 

A big difference is that when something malfunctions in a truck the truck can simply stop and sit there, blocking traffic. You can't do that in a plane.