Should us new guys be afraid of autonomous technology?

Not to metion feeling the wind buffeting the rig or how poor the road is to knownif you need to slow down to avoid snapping something.

 

I mean it was a fun way to spend an afternoon but it just doesn't compare to the real deal.

 

@Lunatic Fringe
1) The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.
2) $7.25 an hour X 40 hours = $290 a week.
3) Overtime at time and a half would be $10.875 an hour.
4) $10.875 X 30 hours overtime = $326.25 a week (maximum driving time of 70 hours in 8 days).
5) $290 + $326.25 = $616.25 every 8 days, (averages out to $77.03 a day).

NOTE (1):
1) I have come across American truck drivers, let alone foreign truck drivers, (OTR, regional, & local), who do NOT earn much more than the federal minimum wage.
2) From what I understand, the non-driving employees working for these same trucking companies are also NOT earning much more than the federal minimum wage.

NOTE (2):
1) Is it the fault of the trucking if it is NOT able to pay their employees better wages?
2) As everyone knows, trucking is a fiercely competitive business.

God bless every American and their families! God bless the U.S.A.!

The absolute sheer driving force of our national economy - without truck drivers, our entire national economy would come to an absolute standstill - if not outright be dead.

Over the mountains, through the woods, into the valleys, coast to coast, from sea to shining sea - truck drivers can and do go anywhere and everywhere, every day, all year round.

 

Level 5, fully autonomous driving, where the vehicle can do all the driving in all circumstances is currently theorized to be impossible with current computing technology without dramatic changes to liability laws.

I suppose we could change our legal system so that a wayward toddler crossing the road as being acceptable for an automated vehicle to mow down and drag for 50 miles but we aren't there now.

The "edge cases" that Musk says that are "all that is left to solve" is the hardest problem to solve.

The deep learning algorithms that is driving a lot of investment need to be pre-trained for every possible situation they encounter. As you add more and more possible situations the computational costs go up way faster than the number of possible situations.

We are multiple decades away from these systems being able to understand what a pedestrian on a pogo stick or a loose elephant is their own...if we ever reach that point.

Right now a lot of people are making a lot of money on promises I am sure that they hope will come true. But more and more companies which bought the hype before actually doing the research have been back tracking and saying it isn't going to happen anytime soon

While some fixed routes in good weather may be automated, replacing drivers completely is purely science fiction at this point.

Without taking about obscure topics like the Structure from Motion with Missing Data problem that I use to deal with before returning to driving I can't explain why here.

But at this point I fully expect people to make jokes about level 5 AVs in 20 years like we do about flying cars today.

 

No carrier or shipper is going to let millions in product travel without a person looking after it.

 

fixed that for ya.

 

Im not afraid of being replaced by a fully autonomous truck in my lifetime. However i AM afraid of the process that gets there. How many computers do you trust not to reboot in the middle of doing something? How many complaints about new safety systems do you see and hear of that the tech people write off to drivers just complaining and they dont fix em? These new systems get forced into the industry and then the public are their R&D who get ignored. As time passes there are more and more trucks with more of these systems and new drivers in the seats without the experience to correct a driving problem when they occur.

 

Absolutely! Be very afraid!


If your afraid of autonomy? Perhaps even the act of driving anything isnt for you. Right now autonomy is still in its infancy. Yes it will be someday. Tho there will always be companies that prefer the human element over an autonomous truck. An autonomous truck wont recognize when there is a problem. IE it lost some of the load. It blew a tire or other things that humans would realize was a need that the truck needs repairs. Also refueling still requires human interaction.

 

Had that conversation with our supervisor recently. Told him how a half dozen times a week trucks go into a panic brake due to a system perceived collision and he asked if we fill out a haptic event form, to improve performance supposedly...
I told him no.
The research and development of this technology is not a drivers responsibility and should have been done before we bought and installed it in every rig nationwide. He didn't have a response.

 

If you've watched that Dog robot. Amazing what he comprehends and works with.
They could do much more with trucks. On a massive scale? No... They aren't putting high enough grade electronics in the trucks in the first place.
Again.... We have much more to worry about before self driving trucks. We got all these programmers. They think they can take over the world with robotics. Just destroy us. Use robotics to get everything done for them. They all got tons of money. They can afford it. What they can't afford is The Apocalypse.... They won't escape their own making.