Self-driving trucks threaten one of America's top blue-collar jobs(latimes.com)
latimes.com
Self-driving trucks threaten one of America's top blue-collar jobs
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-automated-trucks-labor-20160924-snap-story.html
23 comments
This assumption that everything will be cheaper seems a bit disingenuous, because why would these companies want to automate themselves so badly if they weren't going to keep most of the savings as profit?
Even if prices were lowered by a few percent for some goods thanks to cheaper shipping, that's little help when you have no source of income. This will only exacerbate the demand-limited economic slump we're currently experiencing.
Even if prices were lowered by a few percent for some goods thanks to cheaper shipping, that's little help when you have no source of income. This will only exacerbate the demand-limited economic slump we're currently experiencing.
This depends on what the barriers to entry for starting a company. If the barriers to entry are low because you can buy self-driving software off-the-shelf for $20,000 then profits will be low. If the barriers to entry are high because the shipping is done by Uber, Google, etc then the profits will be high.
But you are right that it would increase economic inequality.
But you are right that it would increase economic inequality.
How does automated truck drivers unequivocally equal economic inequality? It's theoretically possible that this labor is now freed up to create value for lower income households..
The only reason self driving tech won't be commoditized will be regulatory barriers. You can imagine why entrenched interests would lobby for such.
The only reason self driving tech won't be commoditized will be regulatory barriers. You can imagine why entrenched interests would lobby for such.
> It's theoretically possible that this labor is now freed up to create value for lower income households.
If there is competition, then it is true that driving down food/commodities prices will create value for lower income households. But a solid portion of that value will still accrue to the companies running the transit networks using fewer people.
Google has spent years trying to enter the field of self-driving cars. So has Uber. Would not the inherent difficulty they are encountering be a barrier to entry.
I'm not arguing for throwing regulations around willy-nilly. I'm not arguing for regulations at all. I don't know enough to do that with any confidence. I'm just saying that in asking the question "Should we use the force of the state to handle some of the effects of this?", the probability of this increasing income inequality is worthy of serious consideration.
If there is competition, then it is true that driving down food/commodities prices will create value for lower income households. But a solid portion of that value will still accrue to the companies running the transit networks using fewer people.
Google has spent years trying to enter the field of self-driving cars. So has Uber. Would not the inherent difficulty they are encountering be a barrier to entry.
I'm not arguing for throwing regulations around willy-nilly. I'm not arguing for regulations at all. I don't know enough to do that with any confidence. I'm just saying that in asking the question "Should we use the force of the state to handle some of the effects of this?", the probability of this increasing income inequality is worthy of serious consideration.
> I don't know enough to do that with any confidence.
From an epistemological perspective no one does. No one person in this world contains the knowledge needed to manufacture a modern day pencil from scratch.
I don't think the term "income inequality" accurately describes the problem. Someone growing richer doesn't mean someone else had to become poorer. The problem more accurately is that poor people are poor.
From an epistemological perspective no one does. No one person in this world contains the knowledge needed to manufacture a modern day pencil from scratch.
I don't think the term "income inequality" accurately describes the problem. Someone growing richer doesn't mean someone else had to become poorer. The problem more accurately is that poor people are poor.
> If the barriers to entry are low because you can buy self-driving software off-the-shelf for $20,000 then profits will be low
In the beginning. Then due to economy of scale (and government regulations), it will be controlled by two huge companies, owning all IP, making any inroads close to impossible.
Think of when the newest major computer manufacturer was founded.
In the beginning. Then due to economy of scale (and government regulations), it will be controlled by two huge companies, owning all IP, making any inroads close to impossible.
Think of when the newest major computer manufacturer was founded.
Well wait no. If it is the case that anyone can buy off-the-shelf software for self-driving cars for a price of $20,000, then a person could just buy a rig, fit it out, develop a relationship with a set of farmers or whatever, and be in business.
How would one of the conglomerates stop that besides competing on price or erecting regulatory barriers?
How would one of the conglomerates stop that besides competing on price or erecting regulatory barriers?
Because he's going to buy it for $20,000. The conglomerate can sell it for $15,000. Who's going to buy it from him.
It's a commodity market (so little "customizing" benefit), crazy IP with feedback loop (Google and Tesla have more street data than anyone else, so they can perfect their algorithms. As their algorithms are better than anyone else's, people buy there hardware, which gives them more data, ad infinitum. Breaking into such a market will be getting harder and harder for that reason), and quite likely some kind of (strict but bureaucratic) safety regulation.
It's a commodity market (so little "customizing" benefit), crazy IP with feedback loop (Google and Tesla have more street data than anyone else, so they can perfect their algorithms. As their algorithms are better than anyone else's, people buy there hardware, which gives them more data, ad infinitum. Breaking into such a market will be getting harder and harder for that reason), and quite likely some kind of (strict but bureaucratic) safety regulation.
er "it", is the software to run your own autonomous vehicles. It is the hypothetical cost of capital. If it is widely available, then people can sell transit services to other businesses.
Because of supply and demand and competition.
If companies could squeeze more money out of customers why wouldn't they just do so right now by raising prices?
If companies could squeeze more money out of customers why wouldn't they just do so right now by raising prices?
Because they would all have to collude to not lower prices, which is illegal. Once one lowers prices - which will happen, because doing so will lead to better business immediately - the rest have to follow.
Such is the nature of competition, and one of the basic reasons why it works. Frankly, I'm surprised it still needs to be explained.
Such is the nature of competition, and one of the basic reasons why it works. Frankly, I'm surprised it still needs to be explained.
Well, if truck driving were automated, they certainly wouldn't lower then.
Personally, I imagine a lot of companies will use that extra money to buy out, take over, or otherwise eliminate their competition. I doubt the consumer will win.
Personally, I imagine a lot of companies will use that extra money to buy out, take over, or otherwise eliminate their competition. I doubt the consumer will win.
If transport companies don't lower prices, won't new companies enter the market and undercut the incumbents?
I imagine (some of) the transport companies will lower their prices, it's the McDonalds, Best Buy, Wallmart, and everybody else who has no reason to lower their prices, even though their costs have dropped.
And so long as the cost to get into the industry is high (the up-front cost of a driver is effectively 0, whereas AI will be non-0), and the incumbents have the ability to drop their prices lower than any new startup (thanks to the efficiencies of scale), serious new competition will be rare.
Even considering all that, the cost for shipping something is remarkably low to begin with. $400 for an 40' shipping container worth of goods over 300 miles? Drop the driver from the equation entirely, and that cost would only go down by about $100. As a point of reference, a 40' shipping container full of bananas is worth in excess of $58,000 (1000 boxes per container, 100 bananas per box, $0.58 per banana).
And so long as the cost to get into the industry is high (the up-front cost of a driver is effectively 0, whereas AI will be non-0), and the incumbents have the ability to drop their prices lower than any new startup (thanks to the efficiencies of scale), serious new competition will be rare.
Even considering all that, the cost for shipping something is remarkably low to begin with. $400 for an 40' shipping container worth of goods over 300 miles? Drop the driver from the equation entirely, and that cost would only go down by about $100. As a point of reference, a 40' shipping container full of bananas is worth in excess of $58,000 (1000 boxes per container, 100 bananas per box, $0.58 per banana).
You could have made the same argument about any technology when it was first created. Why didn't that happen?
It has happened; just look at how the computer manufacturers consolidated when off-shore production took the bottom out of that market.
Really, anytime a major player has cash on hand, they're going to buy out competition, either through acquisition or buying an equivalent product. When Oracle had liquid assets, they buy Sun. ATT and Verizon consolidated the cell phone market down to ATT and Verizon (and even attempt to merge down one step further). DeBeers buys every diamond producer on the market.
Really, anytime a major player has cash on hand, they're going to buy out competition, either through acquisition or buying an equivalent product. When Oracle had liquid assets, they buy Sun. ATT and Verizon consolidated the cell phone market down to ATT and Verizon (and even attempt to merge down one step further). DeBeers buys every diamond producer on the market.
Because they have far greater leverage over labor markets than they do over the market for their product. You don't have to raise prices in a fickle consumer market when you can just make your profits off the much less elastic labor market instead.
They only have to keep prices the same or negligibly lower in order to profit from this proposal.
They only have to keep prices the same or negligibly lower in order to profit from this proposal.
I don't think the word 'disingenuous' is appropriate here. You can argue that GarrisonPrime is misguided or incorrect, but there's no need to assume he or she is deliberately withholding information or is not sincere.
Companies will want to automate because if they don't they will go out of business because their competitors will.
For the prime example of this - look at the global shipping market right now. It's going at a loss right now due to the largest shippers building massive ships to bring down the cost/kg/km down bringing overcapacity to an unsustainable level.
Regardless, that's not going to help an economy whose primary problem is a consumer base who can no longer afford to purchase goods in sufficient numbers.
I'm skeptical that you've identified the primary problem in the US economy. I would definitely rank two things higher:
1) Challenges that come about due to an aging population
2) An overall slow down in innovation (Cowen's "Great Stagnation" hypothesis)
1) Challenges that come about due to an aging population
2) An overall slow down in innovation (Cowen's "Great Stagnation" hypothesis)
An unbalanced young-old demographic ratio is indicative of worsening economic conditions for average people. Looking at Japan, they have a population crisis because there's no time to start a family when you have lots of mandatory unpaid overtime. Thankfully we're not quite that far gone yet, but we're headed in that direction and are starting to face similar demographic problems.
Innovation is slowing down because companies are preoccupied with irrationally slashing labor expenses, and R&D tends to be quite expensive so it gets cut significantly. The result is less income for consumers, who in turn buy fewer goods, which ultimately leads to even more cuts for labor.
Innovation is slowing down because companies are preoccupied with irrationally slashing labor expenses, and R&D tends to be quite expensive so it gets cut significantly. The result is less income for consumers, who in turn buy fewer goods, which ultimately leads to even more cuts for labor.
Right, the price of anything is what people are willing to pay, there is minimal correlation with production costs. If the inputs get cheaper profits will go up but the consumer will pay the same.
Do we see massive price drops whenever any company outsources their call centre to India? Nope, the price stays the same and the execs pocket the difference in bonuses.
Do we see massive price drops whenever any company outsources their call centre to India? Nope, the price stays the same and the execs pocket the difference in bonuses.
Right, the price of anything is what people are willing to pay, there is minimal correlation with production costs.
This only works if the seller has monopoly pricing power. Otherwise gas would be $5/gallon all the time.
Do we see massive price drops whenever any company outsources their call centre to India?
Massive, no, but the prices of most things other than housing, health care, and education have in fact been dropping.
This only works if the seller has monopoly pricing power. Otherwise gas would be $5/gallon all the time.
Do we see massive price drops whenever any company outsources their call centre to India?
Massive, no, but the prices of most things other than housing, health care, and education have in fact been dropping.
Or they are in response to internal rising costs; e.g outsource 20 IT positions because health insurance costs for your other 200 employees are increasing 16%.
> keep most of the savings as profit
Only to the extent they are resistant to market forces.
Only to the extent they are resistant to market forces.
Tons of people are misunderstanding the likely order of events that would decrease shipping costs related to automated long-haul trucking. It'd go like this:
1) One company develops and ships a working autonomous truck. They start selling to shipping companies, or roll their own. 2) The truck client/shipping company starts competing with other shipping companies by offering vastly lower prices on the same shipping. 3) Retailers flock to the automated shipping company because they're vastly cheaper. The first retailer to move and contract with them enjoys a brief competitive advantage over other companies by cutting retail prices slightly and gaining a market advantage. Eventually, other shipping firms pop up to service the other retailers' need for competitively priced trucking. 4) Supply of automated trucking catches up with retailer demand. Retailers are forced to, again, compete directly with one another on price for the same goods, but now the overhead of paying humans to manage shipping is gone.
The doom and gloom comments about overcharging for products is a little ridiculous, IMO. Uber, Apple, Amazon, and Google are at each other's fucking throats for market share in this space. You bet your ass they'd fight tooth and nail with one another on price.
1) One company develops and ships a working autonomous truck. They start selling to shipping companies, or roll their own. 2) The truck client/shipping company starts competing with other shipping companies by offering vastly lower prices on the same shipping. 3) Retailers flock to the automated shipping company because they're vastly cheaper. The first retailer to move and contract with them enjoys a brief competitive advantage over other companies by cutting retail prices slightly and gaining a market advantage. Eventually, other shipping firms pop up to service the other retailers' need for competitively priced trucking. 4) Supply of automated trucking catches up with retailer demand. Retailers are forced to, again, compete directly with one another on price for the same goods, but now the overhead of paying humans to manage shipping is gone.
The doom and gloom comments about overcharging for products is a little ridiculous, IMO. Uber, Apple, Amazon, and Google are at each other's fucking throats for market share in this space. You bet your ass they'd fight tooth and nail with one another on price.
It might not be that sudden of a change, you may still need someone watching the truck remotely, so one truck driver could be responsible for multiple trucks. So you could have larger fleets with the same workforce too.
>>> Yes, many jobs will be lost. But the prices of many goods will decrease.
This remains to be seen. When corporations find ways to cut costs this typically results in higher profits (which there's nothing wrong with that per se) with consumers maybe seeing some cost reduction but not necessarily. Outsourcing of manufacturing jobs is a prime example of that.
This remains to be seen. When corporations find ways to cut costs this typically results in higher profits (which there's nothing wrong with that per se) with consumers maybe seeing some cost reduction but not necessarily. Outsourcing of manufacturing jobs is a prime example of that.
> But the prices of many goods will decrease.
Yes, and if our billionaire overlords are feeling generous, perhaps some of those savings will "trickle down" to us peasants.
But probably not...
Yes, and if our billionaire overlords are feeling generous, perhaps some of those savings will "trickle down" to us peasants.
But probably not...
I agree with most everything you've said, the one point that I would contest is:
> Yes, many jobs will be lost. But the prices of many goods will decrease.
If you're talking about what I first thought of, which is things like groceries, housewares, the "every day things" that we all buy and consume without really thinking, I'm not sure that A: The prices on these items could go much lower than they already are and remain profitable, or B: That the producers of said goods (majority MASSIVE corporations with impressive names and product rosters, and the most likely early adopters of this technology) would reduce the prices in accordance with the reduction in cost. The trend now among these companies seems to be to squeeze every last cent out of every last consumer, and if you're proposing to your given board of directors to buy all these new trucks (or change contracts to a company that has) why would you then cut the prices?
I would hope there would be market pressure to do so from at least one good actor, but I don't know how certain that is at all.
> Yes, many jobs will be lost. But the prices of many goods will decrease.
If you're talking about what I first thought of, which is things like groceries, housewares, the "every day things" that we all buy and consume without really thinking, I'm not sure that A: The prices on these items could go much lower than they already are and remain profitable, or B: That the producers of said goods (majority MASSIVE corporations with impressive names and product rosters, and the most likely early adopters of this technology) would reduce the prices in accordance with the reduction in cost. The trend now among these companies seems to be to squeeze every last cent out of every last consumer, and if you're proposing to your given board of directors to buy all these new trucks (or change contracts to a company that has) why would you then cut the prices?
I would hope there would be market pressure to do so from at least one good actor, but I don't know how certain that is at all.
>"If you're talking about what I first thought of, which is things like groceries, housewares, the "every day things" that we all buy and consume without really thinking, I'm not sure that A: The prices on these items could go much lower than they already are and remain profitable"
This is the wrong analysis. Price of goods is say, (Supplier Cost)+(Transit to Store)+(Profit Margin)=MSRP
You're saying that MSRP can't go down without hurting Profit Margin.
He's saying, Transit to Store will decrease, allowing MSRP to decrease without affecting Supplier Cost or Profit Margin. (Or Profit Margin can increase while MSRP remains the same)
This is the wrong analysis. Price of goods is say, (Supplier Cost)+(Transit to Store)+(Profit Margin)=MSRP
You're saying that MSRP can't go down without hurting Profit Margin.
He's saying, Transit to Store will decrease, allowing MSRP to decrease without affecting Supplier Cost or Profit Margin. (Or Profit Margin can increase while MSRP remains the same)
But there's no guarantee that MSRP will go down. More likely that PM will increase.
Competition all but guarantees it, if there's competition.
Competition will disappear, if companies start having excess liquid assets due to reduced costs. That competition will be lobbied, bought, or acquired right out of the space they were competing in.
Capitalism has a tendency to optimize for a monopoly.
Capitalism has a tendency to optimize for a monopoly.
That's what I'm getting at. How many people price shop for household items and food? The majority I know have a brand that they buy all the time because of any number of reasons, and if the price doesn't go up but just stays where it is, how likely are they to change?
They why wouldn't companies just do that right now? If companies can make more money, they would already be doing that by raising prices!
If the cost of manufacture and shipping goes down, and the price stays the same, the company makes more money and it isn't immediately obvious to the consumer that anything changed.
Historically prices of goods to consumers have dropped dramatically as automation and globalization have reduced the costs of production. Your hypothesis that most of the gains would be captured by producers in the form of increased profits is wrong for almost all consumer goods.
Citation needed. Over the last couple decades processed foodstuffs have been constant in price, but the portions have decreased to cut costs. You can play Russian dolls with old cereal boxes, fitting the newer ones inside the old ones.
All you have to do is look around and see how much stuff people have. People have enormous amounts of stuff compared to even 20 or 30 years ago. Bigger houses. More cars. TVs. Computers. Smart Phones. And it's all, relatively speaking, dirt cheap. It's so cheap that storage units are a booming business because people don't have room to store all their stuff in their homes. It's so cheap that burglaries aren't even a thing anymore really because stuff is so cheap it isn't even worth stealing. It's so cheap that Marie Kondo has a best selling book about the challenges of getting rid of your stuff because you simply have too much of it.
Healthcare is expensive. Education is expensive. Land (in some places) is expensive. But man stuff. Stuff is cheap.
Healthcare is expensive. Education is expensive. Land (in some places) is expensive. But man stuff. Stuff is cheap.
Between 1960 and 2007, the share of disposable personal income spent on total food by Americans, on average, fell from 17.5 to 9.6 percent
http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/detail.a...
http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/detail.a...
Correct. While producers of the raw materials (corn, wheat, rice) have seen prices decline when adjusted for inflation, the producers of finished products (Corn Flakes, Wheaties, etc.) have seen prices rise even when adjusted for inflation. But there are only four or five big middlemen, so it's a lot easier for them to capture the increased margins than the tens of thousands of farmers who produce the raw materials.
Similarly, if Apple could reduce its shipping costs to near zero by teleporting the raw materials to Foxconn and then teleporting the finished goods directly to retail outlets, they'd still charge $600 per iPhone, even though they have competition from other phone makers in the form of Android.
The Invisible Hand doesn't always work the way it did in Adam Smith's time.
Similarly, if Apple could reduce its shipping costs to near zero by teleporting the raw materials to Foxconn and then teleporting the finished goods directly to retail outlets, they'd still charge $600 per iPhone, even though they have competition from other phone makers in the form of Android.
The Invisible Hand doesn't always work the way it did in Adam Smith's time.
It seems wildly unlikely that no one would try to undercut their competitors, since it's obviously a viable business at current profit margins.
If you haven't seen the short (15min) documentary "Humans Need Not Apply", then I highly recommend it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
A hundred years ago 'horseless carriages' replaced a lot of horses, and in the next couple decades we're going to see 'driverless trucks' are going to replace a lot of humans.
A hundred years ago 'horseless carriages' replaced a lot of horses, and in the next couple decades we're going to see 'driverless trucks' are going to replace a lot of humans.
I always have a question about this stuff: when the robots take all of our jobs (or the jobs of a critical mass of the human population), who is going to buy all this stuff the robots make if the humans who are supposed to buy the stuff are broke because they lost their job to a robot?
Has anybody tried to do some kind of study/educated guess about this impact?
At the end of the day, while robots can do our jobs better than we do, they can't consume stuff better than we do, and ultimately our consumption of stuff is what creates the jobs the robots are taking over.
With jobs even as "safe" as surgeons potentially under threat, how long before everyone is in trouble?
Has anybody tried to do some kind of study/educated guess about this impact?
At the end of the day, while robots can do our jobs better than we do, they can't consume stuff better than we do, and ultimately our consumption of stuff is what creates the jobs the robots are taking over.
With jobs even as "safe" as surgeons potentially under threat, how long before everyone is in trouble?
Haven't people been asking this for the past few hundred years? And yet we're better off in life than we ever have been.
Robots do things cheaper. This allows prices to fall.
Also, if a business has nobody to sell to, then they themselves are in trouble. That they remain profitable is a sign that things are fine.
Humans are adaptable creatures and we find other things of value to do.
People from some industries will experience short-term pain. But pre-empting that with politics runs the risk of creating socioeconomic cruft that unnecessarily and inefficiently drains more resources in the long run.
Robots do things cheaper. This allows prices to fall.
Also, if a business has nobody to sell to, then they themselves are in trouble. That they remain profitable is a sign that things are fine.
Humans are adaptable creatures and we find other things of value to do.
People from some industries will experience short-term pain. But pre-empting that with politics runs the risk of creating socioeconomic cruft that unnecessarily and inefficiently drains more resources in the long run.
My great grand mother gave birth to 16 children, who had healthy childhoods and good educations. My family was not wealthy. Nowadays only the wealthy could afford to raise 16 children, with good childhoods and good education. If people now are more affluent than they were in the past, then why is it more difficult to raise children? For those who wish to have large families, it seems obvious that the last 100 years have seen expenses related to raising children rise at a rate faster than the median wage has risen.
In the 1800's, having children was a net asset because they were put to work as soon as they could walk. This is not so in today's society, where they are unemployable and do not contribute economically until 22 or 23.
Also, my grandparents came from families with 8 or more children, and many of them died as children. This was normal for those days.
Also, my grandparents came from families with 8 or more children, and many of them died as children. This was normal for those days.
"In the 1800's, having children was a net asset because they were put to work as soon as they could walk"
You are expanding upon my example without explaining it. My point remains: has the standard of living gone up? If people could do productive work at the age of 10, but now they have to wait till they are 25, then what metric do you use to prove that the standard of living has gone up? If you want to argue that leisure has expanded, can you prove that the expansion of leisure is entirely experienced as a positive thing? Are young men happier now that they can't find good paying work till they are in their late 20s, rather than finding such work in their late teens?
It remains true that it was easier to raise children 100 years ago than it is now. Is there a metric that shows this as a decline in the standard of living?
My point is that there is a lot that is left out of these metrics. A simplistic look at median wage and the Consumer Price Index suggests that the male median wage peaked in 1973 and family income peaked in 1999. But if you were to measure those factors that are specific to raising a family, the decline in the standard of living, for families, would show up earlier than 1999.
As to the "half the children died" argument, the steepest part of the decline in childhood death was 1850 to 1900. Of the 16 children my great grandmother gave birth to, 15 lived till at least their 18th birthday.
You are expanding upon my example without explaining it. My point remains: has the standard of living gone up? If people could do productive work at the age of 10, but now they have to wait till they are 25, then what metric do you use to prove that the standard of living has gone up? If you want to argue that leisure has expanded, can you prove that the expansion of leisure is entirely experienced as a positive thing? Are young men happier now that they can't find good paying work till they are in their late 20s, rather than finding such work in their late teens?
It remains true that it was easier to raise children 100 years ago than it is now. Is there a metric that shows this as a decline in the standard of living?
My point is that there is a lot that is left out of these metrics. A simplistic look at median wage and the Consumer Price Index suggests that the male median wage peaked in 1973 and family income peaked in 1999. But if you were to measure those factors that are specific to raising a family, the decline in the standard of living, for families, would show up earlier than 1999.
As to the "half the children died" argument, the steepest part of the decline in childhood death was 1850 to 1900. Of the 16 children my great grandmother gave birth to, 15 lived till at least their 18th birthday.
Polio wasn't conquered until the 1950's.
> what metric do you use to prove that the standard of living has gone up?
Average height, longevity, infant mortality are good proxies. Median wage doesn't mean much as it doesn't say what you can buy with it.
Have you ever been to Disneyland? Yellowstone? Traveled internationally? Only the rich could do that in 1900. People didn't even brush their teeth until after WW1. Few my age would have any teeth.
No birth control, no living together before marriage. Would you be happier with that?
No radio, no TV, no Hackernews, no movies, no stereo, no Beatles, no disco (!), are you sure you want all that?
> what metric do you use to prove that the standard of living has gone up?
Average height, longevity, infant mortality are good proxies. Median wage doesn't mean much as it doesn't say what you can buy with it.
Have you ever been to Disneyland? Yellowstone? Traveled internationally? Only the rich could do that in 1900. People didn't even brush their teeth until after WW1. Few my age would have any teeth.
No birth control, no living together before marriage. Would you be happier with that?
No radio, no TV, no Hackernews, no movies, no stereo, no Beatles, no disco (!), are you sure you want all that?
You are avoiding the issue. I have to assume that you have no answer to the question. It is more difficult to raise children, and we lack metrics that show that decline. Listing a bunch of neat stuff doesn't show that the standard of living has improved. As a point of comparison, imagine if it now cost 50%, to raise 16 children, than it had 100 years ago. In that situation, we could compare like with like, and we could say that everything had gotten universally better. Since we don't face that situation, we run the risk of only counting the good stuff, without counting any of the bad stuff, and thus falsely concluding that things have gotten better. If we'd like to count DisneyWorld on the positive side, where do we count the increased difficulty of raising children?
Your point about polio is bizarre, as it was never the dominant factor in childhood mortality. The steepest decline in childhood mortality was during the period from 1850 to 1900.
Your point about polio is bizarre, as it was never the dominant factor in childhood mortality. The steepest decline in childhood mortality was during the period from 1850 to 1900.
Polio: http://www.plosin.com/beatbegins/projects/sokol.html Mortality wasn't the big concern with polio, it was the debilitating life-long after effects, and the adverse effects of pervasive fear of it.
You want to believe things are worse in America, I can't change your mind. In my own lifetime things have gotten visibly better. My father lived into his 90s, and he'd recount how things have gotten quite a bit better. Sure that's anecdotal, but you can look up statistics, too.
A "bunch of neat stuff" does improve standard of living. I'm almost never bored, for example.
You want to believe things are worse in America, I can't change your mind. In my own lifetime things have gotten visibly better. My father lived into his 90s, and he'd recount how things have gotten quite a bit better. Sure that's anecdotal, but you can look up statistics, too.
A "bunch of neat stuff" does improve standard of living. I'm almost never bored, for example.
I can put this differently: if I had a CFO who confused gross revenue with net profit, then I would fire the CFO and hire someone better.
We can easily list cool stuff that happened over the last 100 years: radio, television, cell phones, the Internet.
We can easily list bad stuff that happened over the last 100 years: environmental degradation, global warming, the increase in the percentage of income spent on transportation, difficulties in raising children.
What do we get when we subtract the bad stuff from the good stuff? Until we have good metrics for doing that, we are like the CFO who confuses gross revenue with net profit.
We can easily list cool stuff that happened over the last 100 years: radio, television, cell phones, the Internet.
We can easily list bad stuff that happened over the last 100 years: environmental degradation, global warming, the increase in the percentage of income spent on transportation, difficulties in raising children.
What do we get when we subtract the bad stuff from the good stuff? Until we have good metrics for doing that, we are like the CFO who confuses gross revenue with net profit.
People peddling arguments like this are being incredibly obnoxious. There are billions of people alive today who don't have access to modern medicine/electricity/internet. You claim with a straight face that your quality of life is not better than them?
> Haven't people been asking this for the past few hundred years? And yet we're better off in life than we ever have been.
I don't think everyone--in this time or others--would agree with this. I certainly don't believe in being "better off", I think that's an illusion born out of minimization of our greatest fears. Just because you aren't about to die of tetanus does not mean your quality of life has improve at all.
I don't think everyone--in this time or others--would agree with this. I certainly don't believe in being "better off", I think that's an illusion born out of minimization of our greatest fears. Just because you aren't about to die of tetanus does not mean your quality of life has improve at all.
> I certainly don't believe in being "better off"
I do. Archeological evidence of American colonists' bones reveal that they worked extremely hard and died young. Look at their clothes in a museum - they look like childrens' sizes. Look at their teeth in bones in museums. Do you prefer teeth like that?
I can buy an orange any day of the year. I have hot/cold running water. I'm warm in winter. I have clean water to drink. I have ice cream in the summer. I have endless entertainment at the push of a button. I can talk at any time to any family/friend anywhere in the world at my whim.
I'd probably be dead by my age if I lived 200 years ago.
I do. Archeological evidence of American colonists' bones reveal that they worked extremely hard and died young. Look at their clothes in a museum - they look like childrens' sizes. Look at their teeth in bones in museums. Do you prefer teeth like that?
I can buy an orange any day of the year. I have hot/cold running water. I'm warm in winter. I have clean water to drink. I have ice cream in the summer. I have endless entertainment at the push of a button. I can talk at any time to any family/friend anywhere in the world at my whim.
I'd probably be dead by my age if I lived 200 years ago.
If you have no option for better teeth, how much does that impact you? Serious question.
I really should have framed my example in terms of happiness rather than quality of life.
I really should have framed my example in terms of happiness rather than quality of life.
There are many terrible diseases today for which there is no effective treatment. Do you believe people are happy with that situation? I don't.
> Just because you aren't about to die of tetanus does not mean your quality of life has improve at all.
I have asthma and require corrective lenses. My quality of life is orders of magnitude better now than it would have been even 100 years ago.
I have asthma and require corrective lenses. My quality of life is orders of magnitude better now than it would have been even 100 years ago.
People writing stuff like this should spend a year in a disease prone third world country away from all modern technologies like electricity and internet. Then you'll understand whether you really have a higher quality of life or not.
Well that's the thing, isn't it? Are you really more likely to be unhappy (or happy) unless you've seen both worlds? Happiness is relative to your frame of reference.
Disease is unfortunate. So is the destruction of our earth. The people dearest to me live thousands of miles apart and talk to me through Facebook. That too is unfortunate.
I simply wish i could dictate the terms of my lifestyle and I cannot. I understand most do not grapple with this problem.
Disease is unfortunate. So is the destruction of our earth. The people dearest to me live thousands of miles apart and talk to me through Facebook. That too is unfortunate.
I simply wish i could dictate the terms of my lifestyle and I cannot. I understand most do not grapple with this problem.
Through most of history, people transition to doing other jobs. That transition is often painful. Thus various government welfare programs.
Well, if this video [0] is anything to go by, most of the other jobs will be automated as well. And although I have no foresight to know how it will pan out, it looks like advances in technology (which have produced previously unimagined jobs for humans - hello, Android dev), advances in technology in this new age will only create new jobs for automatons, not for humans.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
Until we hit the singularity, programmers can always get more meta -- thinking about how to do the job rather than doing the job, no matter what the job is. It's infinitely recursive.
In the not-so-distant future, nearly all jobs will be programming jobs. That or shaking hands and smiling.
In the not-so-distant future, nearly all jobs will be programming jobs. That or shaking hands and smiling.
[deleted]
In a word, redistribution.
With a rising share of income going to robots (capital) rather than humans (labor), there needs to be a stronger social safety net. This means guaranteed health insurance, health care, retirement benefits, and even a minimum income.
That safety net will have to be paid for via some combination of taxes on wealth, profits, and investment income.
With a rising share of income going to robots (capital) rather than humans (labor), there needs to be a stronger social safety net. This means guaranteed health insurance, health care, retirement benefits, and even a minimum income.
That safety net will have to be paid for via some combination of taxes on wealth, profits, and investment income.
You're making an assumption here that no higher level jobs would arise. History tells us that is a fallacy. In 1800s more than 70% of the workforce was engaged in agriculture. Today it's 1-2% in the US. However, the others are not just sitting on their asses. There are jobs available today which simply were not conceivable back then (programmer, animation designer yadda yadda).
I guess a question is: where would the income (that is supposed to be "redistributed") come from, in a world where the customers of every commercial entity cannot earn an income to pay taxes and contribute to the pool to be redistributed?
I guess a country could always wage war against another and take their resources or enslave their people.
Is that the ultimate outcome?
Not trying to stir politics here, just to find the theoretical limit of an economy where all actors can be automated.
I guess a country could always wage war against another and take their resources or enslave their people.
Is that the ultimate outcome?
Not trying to stir politics here, just to find the theoretical limit of an economy where all actors can be automated.
> where would the income come from
You are confusing money with wealth (stuff people want). The money would come from the government, which can simply print it.
Take a hypothetical situation where robots cause the total amount of wealth (stuff) created, in one year, to increase by 100%. Now assume the government prints enough money to increase the total amount of money by 100%. In this case, wealth has increased by 100%, and money has increased by 100%, so people's ability to get stuff has increased 100%, with 0% inflation.
In the real world, things never work out so cleanly, but the above offers a simplified model of what could happen.
You are confusing money with wealth (stuff people want). The money would come from the government, which can simply print it.
Take a hypothetical situation where robots cause the total amount of wealth (stuff) created, in one year, to increase by 100%. Now assume the government prints enough money to increase the total amount of money by 100%. In this case, wealth has increased by 100%, and money has increased by 100%, so people's ability to get stuff has increased 100%, with 0% inflation.
In the real world, things never work out so cleanly, but the above offers a simplified model of what could happen.
Why would there be zero percent inflation, if the money supply doubled?
At the risk of being simplistic, because so did the "stuff" supply. Inflation is when the money supply increases without the stuff supply increasing, so each dollar is worth less stuff.
It is worrisome that the posts which are factually accurate are getting downvoted. This raises a question about economic literacy on Hacker News. Presumably the people downvoting this comment simply don't understand how the economy works.
The Box[1], a book about the history behind the shipping container which eliminated the jobs of bunches of longshorement, seems very instructive.
[1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller-Econ...
[1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller-Econ...
I guess it will more likely pan out like flying: You still need humans to steer the colossus through cities and other complicated terrains, to keep them running, for emergency situations, for the insurance company and, maybe, for the unions. But most of the time the truck will drive on autopilot.
Slowly humans will fade completely from the picture, but it will not be a hard cut. Also, we are far away from auto-fixing trucks. So at least the repair crews will stay for long while.
Slowly humans will fade completely from the picture, but it will not be a hard cut. Also, we are far away from auto-fixing trucks. So at least the repair crews will stay for long while.
It will be a slow-motion economic calamity, similar to how internet sourcing of materials and sales has gutted the lower middle class. The generation in the out-automated job never retrains or productively re-enters the workforce. Instead they turn around and vote for people who want to flip over the economic card table.
Democratic capitalism has to get this isht figured out, or the next century is going to be unpleasant.
Democratic capitalism has to get this isht figured out, or the next century is going to be unpleasant.
The transition won't be good for people who currently drive semi-trucks or who aspire to. However, there are some reasons that this may actually take a bit longer to fully play out than it appears. To start, there is the transition time from existing capital stock of trucks (those things are hundreds of thousands of dollars); there are also many activities that drivers do that aren't just driving- delivery drivers are often responsible for stocking and displaying the goods they bring; there are various paperwork issues that drivers deal with; there is the care and feeding of these large complex machines in often austere circumstances.
I imagine you'll see a lot of hybridization of activities before (or if) you see the elimination of the human- such as a human riding "shotgun" and dealing with any issues or activities that arise when the truck is stopped, or where you see more humans employed in servicing and response roles.
That being said, hauling shipping containers around the port of long beach is probably on its way out. I feel for those drivers.
I imagine you'll see a lot of hybridization of activities before (or if) you see the elimination of the human- such as a human riding "shotgun" and dealing with any issues or activities that arise when the truck is stopped, or where you see more humans employed in servicing and response roles.
That being said, hauling shipping containers around the port of long beach is probably on its way out. I feel for those drivers.
I'm surprised at how _few_ posts/articles like this there have been, so far: self-driving cars are taking off and are a big looming imminent threat to Uber/taxi/truck drivers.
Every time I take an Uber now, I wonder if the driver realizes that his job will most likely be automated away in a couple of years.
Every time I take an Uber now, I wonder if the driver realizes that his job will most likely be automated away in a couple of years.
More like a couple of decades.
I disagree. At most one decade, but I would bet it happens much sooner. As some have mentioned... the economic incentives are too high.
There's way more posts/articles than warranted. Human drivers are going nowhere anytime soon. There's a lot of marketing about self-driving cars but nowhere enough actual technology to back it.
We don't have self-driving trains yet, except in very tightly controlled environments. So I think it's going to take more than a few test runs to show that self-driving trucks will displace drivers anytime soon.
I don't see what the two have to do with each other. Technical reasons aren't why we don't have self-driving trains, it's just that the economy of things becomes very different when your vehicle is about a kilometre or two long compared to maybe 25 metres.
(Yeah, yeah, I know about the kilometre long Australian semi-trailer trucks, but those aren't really practical in most situations...)
(Yeah, yeah, I know about the kilometre long Australian semi-trailer trucks, but those aren't really practical in most situations...)
Aussie road trains are at most 55m
(They are still really imposing and impressive, especially at night. On the extremely flat, straight desert roads in the Outback, you can see them miles before they arrive, like a star on the horizon. When they finally get to where you are, they fly by with a hefty gust of wind. They have steel "roo bars" mounted on the front for efficiently generating roadkill. They are loud, brightly lit, and more than half a football field long.)
(They are still really imposing and impressive, especially at night. On the extremely flat, straight desert roads in the Outback, you can see them miles before they arrive, like a star on the horizon. When they finally get to where you are, they fly by with a hefty gust of wind. They have steel "roo bars" mounted on the front for efficiently generating roadkill. They are loud, brightly lit, and more than half a football field long.)
Make no mistake: technologies like this -- which bring massive cost-savings to companies -- tend to arrive sooner than most people think. The incentives are just too big to ignore.
Mining companies in Australia are already using self-driving trucks to transport ore.
http://www.businessinsider.com/rio-tinto-using-self-driving-...
And self-driving cars are just around the corner in the USA. Trucks will follow maybe half a decade after that, at most.
Mining companies in Australia are already using self-driving trucks to transport ore.
http://www.businessinsider.com/rio-tinto-using-self-driving-...
And self-driving cars are just around the corner in the USA. Trucks will follow maybe half a decade after that, at most.
You think cars come before trucks? Trucks seem easier to me. Driving 500 miles on a very standardized highway seems like an easier problem than negotiating city streets and picking up hard to identify passengers from a curb.
A lot of the time the passenger will be holding a beacon that communicates their position to the car.
It also seems to me that such things won't be a big deal. Some Google demo shows their system recognizing a bicyclist making a hand signal. It's the dynamic traffic stuff that will take longer to deal with.
I was thinking about one problem the autonomous systems will have to handle on my run yesterday; pedestrians can look at drivers and use eye contact to make sure the driver has noticed them. An autonomous system doesn't have eyes to look at. The first idea I came up with was a highly directional light source that the system could point at the system could point at the heads of pedestrians it had recognized. Not a laser, but a moderately bright light in a recess that limits the direct visibility of the source.
It also seems to me that such things won't be a big deal. Some Google demo shows their system recognizing a bicyclist making a hand signal. It's the dynamic traffic stuff that will take longer to deal with.
I was thinking about one problem the autonomous systems will have to handle on my run yesterday; pedestrians can look at drivers and use eye contact to make sure the driver has noticed them. An autonomous system doesn't have eyes to look at. The first idea I came up with was a highly directional light source that the system could point at the system could point at the heads of pedestrians it had recognized. Not a laser, but a moderately bright light in a recess that limits the direct visibility of the source.
Truck driving in the city, negotiating alleys and backing into loading docks. Sure that might be awhile. But long haul Interstate driving? With all of the restrictions on driver hours? That is coming as fast as possible. 8 hours driving at an average speed of 50 mph gives you 400 miles per "day". 24 hours at 50 mph gives you 1200 miles per day. Everyone saves time and money.
I think we could easily have self-driving trains if they were considered important. The cost savings (and safety improvement) of self-driving trains probably just isn't high enough for it to be treated with the same urgency as self-driving cars.
I'm continually dumbfounded by how Americans are so concerned with holding onto jobs, rather than moving forward.
When the automobile was invented think of all the farriers and hay people that went out of business and had to move on.
Think about the milkman or the guy that used to put ice in the back of your ice-chest out in the back yard.
When we eventually move off coal, think of all the millions of people involved in the coal industry that will be out of work.
Those lay-offs are a good thing, and we should be doing everything we can do expedite the process.
Of course for individuals in an industry that will be soon redundant it sucks, but that's the nature of life. Move on, adapt, re-train. Job security was fleeting in the 70s and 80s. It's not real anymore.
When the automobile was invented think of all the farriers and hay people that went out of business and had to move on.
Think about the milkman or the guy that used to put ice in the back of your ice-chest out in the back yard.
When we eventually move off coal, think of all the millions of people involved in the coal industry that will be out of work.
Those lay-offs are a good thing, and we should be doing everything we can do expedite the process.
Of course for individuals in an industry that will be soon redundant it sucks, but that's the nature of life. Move on, adapt, re-train. Job security was fleeting in the 70s and 80s. It's not real anymore.
This is global, it's not specific to America.
Fun story, the word luddite comes from Ned Ludd, an 18th century English weaver. He destroyed some mechanical looms and inspired a bunch of people to copy him. They were angry about automation taking their jobs.
This is a timeless problem.
> Of course for individuals in an industry that will be soon redundant it sucks, but that's the nature of life. Move on, adapt, re-train.
You're gonna need more empathy than that. For someone like a 50-year-old coal miner living in Kentucky, "adapt, retrain" is easier said than done.
Fun story, the word luddite comes from Ned Ludd, an 18th century English weaver. He destroyed some mechanical looms and inspired a bunch of people to copy him. They were angry about automation taking their jobs.
This is a timeless problem.
> Of course for individuals in an industry that will be soon redundant it sucks, but that's the nature of life. Move on, adapt, re-train.
You're gonna need more empathy than that. For someone like a 50-year-old coal miner living in Kentucky, "adapt, retrain" is easier said than done.
While you are correct, I think the distinguishing difference here is the rate of change. Automobiles became commercially viable and then common years apart and in some areas decades. The industry - and underlying jobs, infrastructure, etc - had time to adapt and change.
For self-driving vehicles, I suspect the window of time between "commercially viable" and "common" is a few years, ten if we want to be pessimistic.
So will society (jobs, infrastructure, etc) adjust quickly enough to absorb this change without major pain?
I don't know but since we know it's going to happen, I think we should push the conversation towards "what's next" and figure out how to help people get there instead of just lamenting the loss or complaining about the lament.
For self-driving vehicles, I suspect the window of time between "commercially viable" and "common" is a few years, ten if we want to be pessimistic.
So will society (jobs, infrastructure, etc) adjust quickly enough to absorb this change without major pain?
I don't know but since we know it's going to happen, I think we should push the conversation towards "what's next" and figure out how to help people get there instead of just lamenting the loss or complaining about the lament.
Unfortunately, loss of jobs in American doesn't come with free “adapt, retrain” like it does in many European countries. It's still very third-world in terms of that. If you lose your job, and haven't saved much (and many Americans don't, because of all the advertising that encourages overconsumption), you'll be out on the street or in a homeless shelter if you are unable to pay for your house.
If a 35-year old coal miner has bought a house with a middle-class income and suddenly gets laid off, he could be in that shelter within a year. That is why people are so concerned with holding on to jobs.
If a 35-year old coal miner has bought a house with a middle-class income and suddenly gets laid off, he could be in that shelter within a year. That is why people are so concerned with holding on to jobs.
You're dumbfounded that people would be interested in their own survival?
Automation eventually leads to a rise in productivity and living standards for future generations. The typical truck driver won't get to reap any of the benefits from the transition.
Sympathy for the Luddites[1] lays out a convincing argument for what actually happens when these jobs disappear.
[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/opinion/krugman-sympathy-f...
Automation eventually leads to a rise in productivity and living standards for future generations. The typical truck driver won't get to reap any of the benefits from the transition.
Sympathy for the Luddites[1] lays out a convincing argument for what actually happens when these jobs disappear.
[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/opinion/krugman-sympathy-f...
Move on, adapt, re-train.
I used to make this argument, but I don't really agree with it anymore. In the past, there was significantly more on-the-job training and even people with a high school education could get fairly good jobs with the possibility of meaningful career advancement. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore, and it seems like most of the jobs that are lost due to free trade and automation result in workers that, at best, have primarily service jobs available to them that offer little possibility for advancement. Economists predicted that those displaced workers would increase their educational level and retrain, but in practice that did not happen either because people are unable or unwilling. At least part of this must be because in the past, on-the-job training was much more common than today.
See this article in the Economist: http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21695855-america...
Here are some relevant paragraphs: Until recently, most economists assumed that displaced workers could find new work relatively easily. After all, in June 2007, on the eve of the financial crisis, unemployment was 4.6%—lower than it was before the recession of the early 1990s. Between 2000 and 2007 Americans left 5m jobs a month and started 5.1m new ones. A million or so jobs lost to trade with China over more than a decade seems tiny by comparison.
But many workers displaced by Chinese imports did not simply find another job. Mr Autor and his colleagues have shown that, at local level, employment falls at least one-for-one with jobs lost to trade, and that displaced workers are unlikely to move to seek new work. The lowest-skilled who do find new jobs tend to move to similar, and thus similarly vulnerable, employment. One reason for this immobility could be that the economy is now an unwelcoming place for jobseekers without a university degree. The housing collapse of the late 2000s, which left many Americans trapped in negative equity, may have made things worse. This new strain of research has lent support to the claim of Dani Rodrik, a globalisation sceptic, that “If you are of low skill, have little education, and are not very mobile, international trade has been bad news for you pretty much throughout your entire life.”
While that article is focused on trade, automation should have a similar impact on the kinds of jobs displaced, e.g., level of education and skill required.
I used to make this argument, but I don't really agree with it anymore. In the past, there was significantly more on-the-job training and even people with a high school education could get fairly good jobs with the possibility of meaningful career advancement. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore, and it seems like most of the jobs that are lost due to free trade and automation result in workers that, at best, have primarily service jobs available to them that offer little possibility for advancement. Economists predicted that those displaced workers would increase their educational level and retrain, but in practice that did not happen either because people are unable or unwilling. At least part of this must be because in the past, on-the-job training was much more common than today.
See this article in the Economist: http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21695855-america...
Here are some relevant paragraphs: Until recently, most economists assumed that displaced workers could find new work relatively easily. After all, in June 2007, on the eve of the financial crisis, unemployment was 4.6%—lower than it was before the recession of the early 1990s. Between 2000 and 2007 Americans left 5m jobs a month and started 5.1m new ones. A million or so jobs lost to trade with China over more than a decade seems tiny by comparison.
But many workers displaced by Chinese imports did not simply find another job. Mr Autor and his colleagues have shown that, at local level, employment falls at least one-for-one with jobs lost to trade, and that displaced workers are unlikely to move to seek new work. The lowest-skilled who do find new jobs tend to move to similar, and thus similarly vulnerable, employment. One reason for this immobility could be that the economy is now an unwelcoming place for jobseekers without a university degree. The housing collapse of the late 2000s, which left many Americans trapped in negative equity, may have made things worse. This new strain of research has lent support to the claim of Dani Rodrik, a globalisation sceptic, that “If you are of low skill, have little education, and are not very mobile, international trade has been bad news for you pretty much throughout your entire life.”
While that article is focused on trade, automation should have a similar impact on the kinds of jobs displaced, e.g., level of education and skill required.
I'm continually dumbfounded by how Americans are so concerned with holding onto jobs, rather than moving forward.
It shouldn't be a matter of holding on to the jobs, it should be about helping people transition to new jobs.
The industrial revolution was amazing and wonderful, but for the people who get caught under the wheels, who didn't know how to adapt, it was nothing but pain.
Here is a poem to illustrate what I mean: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detai...
It shouldn't be a matter of holding on to the jobs, it should be about helping people transition to new jobs.
The industrial revolution was amazing and wonderful, but for the people who get caught under the wheels, who didn't know how to adapt, it was nothing but pain.
Here is a poem to illustrate what I mean: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detai...
The US has ~120,000 people employed at fossil fuel generation plants and about 65,000 employed in the coal mining industry.
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=19271
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_mining_in_the_United_Stat...
I guess lots of the 120,000 work at smaller gas plants.
There's ~1.6 million people directly employed as truck drivers.
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=19271
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_mining_in_the_United_Stat...
I guess lots of the 120,000 work at smaller gas plants.
There's ~1.6 million people directly employed as truck drivers.
[deleted]
Long haul trucking should be replaced by trains anyway. Heavy trucks are the primary cause of expensive highway damage, and are environmentally destructive with all the fuel, tire dust, etc. The reason trucks are economically viable at all is they shift their costs to the taxpayer, who pays for the highways.
(A truck loaded to the legal limit inflicts 9,000 times as much fatigue damage to the road as a car, and trucks are often overloaded.)
I propose that the government drastically increase weight fees for highway use, and use the revenue to subsidize freight trains. (The truck container can just be picked up and dropped on a flatbed rail car.)
Trucks for the last mile are still necessary.
(A truck loaded to the legal limit inflicts 9,000 times as much fatigue damage to the road as a car, and trucks are often overloaded.)
I propose that the government drastically increase weight fees for highway use, and use the revenue to subsidize freight trains. (The truck container can just be picked up and dropped on a flatbed rail car.)
Trucks for the last mile are still necessary.
the turnover in that career is pretty damn high. having met many truckers, especially newly set on the road from school and such, like 9 out of 10 don't stick with it.
Wait for the shit storm when they attempt to fully automate ports
Wait for the shit storm when they attempt to fully automate ports
Recently I am interested in the end of the Bretton Woods system. For the past few years, I've been interested in this graph: http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/files/family_income_med...
This is the main story. At a time, perhaps because of fixed exchange rates curbing the flow of speculative capital, perhaps not, productivity (viz., increasing automation) gains meant median wage growth - ordinary people participated in GDP growth.
Now this is no longer true, and we get pieces lamenting the death of blue collar jobs through automation. We'll blame robots, but perhaps we should be looking at the fundamentals of our economy - how we've set the free movement of capital above all else, to our detriment.
This is the main story. At a time, perhaps because of fixed exchange rates curbing the flow of speculative capital, perhaps not, productivity (viz., increasing automation) gains meant median wage growth - ordinary people participated in GDP growth.
Now this is no longer true, and we get pieces lamenting the death of blue collar jobs through automation. We'll blame robots, but perhaps we should be looking at the fundamentals of our economy - how we've set the free movement of capital above all else, to our detriment.
Pay/productivity gap graphs are nonsense
http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=30585
http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=30585
I disagree with this conclusion, and I tend to disfavor the PCE. The argument is that employers are spending more on benefits, therefore pay has not actually fallen. However, the largest component of the difference between the PCE and CPI is based on employer-provided healthcare; in the US, healthcare spending has been growing at faster than inflation for decades, and medical costs are one of the main avenues of wealth transfer (for example, $300 billion a year, 2% of GDP, goes in patent royalties to owners of pharmaceutical companies).
It is a bit crap to suggest that because we are paying people more so they can pay their doctors more, for worse outcomes than anyone in the rest of the developed world, they are somehow turning out better. In any case, the fact that real wages have remained essentially flat requires us to believe that workers are fine with not having made any gains in disposable income in exchange for better benefits, which seems unlikely.
Also, the fact that labor peaked in 1973, when the graph begins to diverge, should reinforce, not contradict, this argument.
It is a bit crap to suggest that because we are paying people more so they can pay their doctors more, for worse outcomes than anyone in the rest of the developed world, they are somehow turning out better. In any case, the fact that real wages have remained essentially flat requires us to believe that workers are fine with not having made any gains in disposable income in exchange for better benefits, which seems unlikely.
Also, the fact that labor peaked in 1973, when the graph begins to diverge, should reinforce, not contradict, this argument.
The conclusion isn't that everything is hunky dory. What he does conclude is that labor's share of income hasn't much changed. What has changed is the distribution of income between laborers. As has been noted in about a million places, gains have increasingly been going to those at the top.
Your chart implies some sort of breakdown between productivity and income but does not demonstrate that productivity gains have been equally distributed. In fact, there are a lot of reasons to think that most productivity gains are going towards the top end of the labor pool as well. Due to the lever of technology, we see increasingly small (in terms of # of employees) firms serve increasingly large markets.
Your chart implies some sort of breakdown between productivity and income but does not demonstrate that productivity gains have been equally distributed. In fact, there are a lot of reasons to think that most productivity gains are going towards the top end of the labor pool as well. Due to the lever of technology, we see increasingly small (in terms of # of employees) firms serve increasingly large markets.
Median income remaining flat is entirely consistent with productivity being absorbed by the high end.
I'm not sure what you mean by "absorbed"?
My point (well Scott Sumner's really) is that there hasn't been a breakdown between pay and productivity. People are still getting paid more if they are more productive. It's just that somewhere around 1970 or so the median worker stopped getting all that much more productive.
Now, maybe that's what you meant by your graph. In which case, fine. But most people look at that and they think that the median worker started getting cheated out of their productivity gains. And that's probably not what's happening.
My point (well Scott Sumner's really) is that there hasn't been a breakdown between pay and productivity. People are still getting paid more if they are more productive. It's just that somewhere around 1970 or so the median worker stopped getting all that much more productive.
Now, maybe that's what you meant by your graph. In which case, fine. But most people look at that and they think that the median worker started getting cheated out of their productivity gains. And that's probably not what's happening.
I think that's exactly what happened. For example, what I described earlier, medical costs increasing at twice the rate of inflation in the US while outcomes did not improve much at all, is the median worker being cheated out of their productivity gains: it means they are paying more and getting less, while health care providers and people who own patents on drugs or medical devices get more. This change has absolutely zilch to do with changes in how productive anyone is and much more to do with how income is distributed, how property rights are enforced, how high-tech industry is regulated, etc.
Increased costs for health care(1) are a measure of where workers are spending their money. That's an orthogonal issue to measures of worker productivity.
1. It's a side issue, but I'd also dispute your statement that people are getting less. Life expectancy has increased ~10 years in the US since 1970.
1. It's a side issue, but I'd also dispute your statement that people are getting less. Life expectancy has increased ~10 years in the US since 1970.
People in the US are getting less than in other places, in terms of health care. Other countries also haven't seen the same gap in gdp/income.
Arguing that workers are less productive because they earn less is a tautology; it also requires us to believe that workers magically stopped being more productive in 1973 after decades of improvement.
Arguing that workers are less productive because they earn less is a tautology; it also requires us to believe that workers magically stopped being more productive in 1973 after decades of improvement.
1) Our health care system is certainly unusual and it might very well have problems. But, again, that has nothing to do with measures of worker productivity outside of the health care sector.
2) Other countries have significantly larger transfers from the rich to the poor. That certainly puts more spending power in the hands of the bottom half of the bell curve (which might be a good idea!), but it doesn't mean they're more productive.
3) I don't magically believe that increases in median worker productivity slowed in the 1970s, I believe it because it matches what I see in the world. GM used to employ 100s of thousands of people when it was one of the most valuable companies in America. Now Facebook holds that status with something like 15,000.
Technology has become this huge lever where fewer and fewer people are needed to make more and more stuff. So increasingly it's the people at the top end of the bell curve that are capturing these gains. A programmer can write software that gets used by more people than ever. A retail store employee is doing pretty much the same job now that they were doing 30 years ago.
2) Other countries have significantly larger transfers from the rich to the poor. That certainly puts more spending power in the hands of the bottom half of the bell curve (which might be a good idea!), but it doesn't mean they're more productive.
3) I don't magically believe that increases in median worker productivity slowed in the 1970s, I believe it because it matches what I see in the world. GM used to employ 100s of thousands of people when it was one of the most valuable companies in America. Now Facebook holds that status with something like 15,000.
Technology has become this huge lever where fewer and fewer people are needed to make more and more stuff. So increasingly it's the people at the top end of the bell curve that are capturing these gains. A programmer can write software that gets used by more people than ever. A retail store employee is doing pretty much the same job now that they were doing 30 years ago.
> increases in median worker productivity slowed
> fewer and fewer people are needed to make more and more stuff.
You're arguing against yourself, here. The latter is productivity increase, the former is productivity decrease. Also, productivity growth is not new, it has been going on as long as the economy exists. Machine automation has been occurring since the industrial revolution started, it did not start in 1973.
What started in 1973 was that the high end (basically, the owners of capital) stopped sharing productivity gains - meaning that where previously, workers were able to bargain for a share of the increase, now they cannot, because of various mechanisms of taking. CEO pay did not go up 10X because CEOs were suddenly drinking tiger blood and winning the Fields medal.
My original contention was that one of these was the shift away from the Bretton Woods system, with fixed currency exchange rates based on the dollar; going from here to speculative international currency flows and floating exchange rates is one possible mechanism for making workers less able to bargain for those productivity increases.
> fewer and fewer people are needed to make more and more stuff.
You're arguing against yourself, here. The latter is productivity increase, the former is productivity decrease. Also, productivity growth is not new, it has been going on as long as the economy exists. Machine automation has been occurring since the industrial revolution started, it did not start in 1973.
What started in 1973 was that the high end (basically, the owners of capital) stopped sharing productivity gains - meaning that where previously, workers were able to bargain for a share of the increase, now they cannot, because of various mechanisms of taking. CEO pay did not go up 10X because CEOs were suddenly drinking tiger blood and winning the Fields medal.
My original contention was that one of these was the shift away from the Bretton Woods system, with fixed currency exchange rates based on the dollar; going from here to speculative international currency flows and floating exchange rates is one possible mechanism for making workers less able to bargain for those productivity increases.
What started in 1973 was that the high end (basically, the owners of capital) stopped sharing productivity gains - meaning that where previously, workers were able to bargain for a share of the increase, now they cannot, because of various mechanisms of taking.
NO! This is EXACTLY what I (really Scott Summers) am saying has not happened. The share of national income going to labor (vs the owners of capital) has remained almost exactly constant since 1973 (and before then as well).
NO! This is EXACTLY what I (really Scott Summers) am saying has not happened. The share of national income going to labor (vs the owners of capital) has remained almost exactly constant since 1973 (and before then as well).
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It's not just the drivers. Drivers stop at stores along the highways. They will suffer impact too. Drivers need to take laundry to the cleaners. That is gone. They need to sleep along the way, so let's hotel rooms needed and less hotel personnel needed.
The ripple effect is significant.
The ripple effect is significant.
The basic premise going back to Jamestown is that if you don't work you don't eat this goes deep into the collective psyche of this country DC is entirely unprepared for these changes they still think unemployment is largely an issue of people having bad morality.
sounds like the self-driving trucks would need to be protected by security teams, otherwise they may be susceptible to out of work pirates.
You can estimate the impact.
Take the fraction of truck drivers that will become pirates
Multiply by the number of trucks that an average pirate can hijack, deliver the merchandise to a reseller of stolen goods, get paid, and launder the money before getting caught.
Divide by how many shipments a truck driver currently makes per year.
And that's an estimate of the fraction of merchandise that will be pirated.
I suspect the answer is no more than 1%, in which case it is absorbable along with other kinds of lossage.
Take the fraction of truck drivers that will become pirates
Multiply by the number of trucks that an average pirate can hijack, deliver the merchandise to a reseller of stolen goods, get paid, and launder the money before getting caught.
Divide by how many shipments a truck driver currently makes per year.
And that's an estimate of the fraction of merchandise that will be pirated.
I suspect the answer is no more than 1%, in which case it is absorbable along with other kinds of lossage.
This really needs more attention/consideration. Self-driving anything seems like a ripe target, as the perceived "harm" is to a corporation not a human driver/operator. That is, theives will not have to hurt anyone to get the goods.
This seems like it has already been "solved" by trains- moving targets are hard, cargo is anonymous, stationary targets are in semi-secured railyards, and shrinkage is part of the cost of doing business.
Who wants to hijack a truck and find its full of breakfast cereal?
Who wants to hijack a truck and find its full of breakfast cereal?
I would guess that a train is much harder to stop than a truck. Further, one can drive next to a truck and have people jump on the truck to do some "snooping." The "driver" is not going to freak out/swerve as the drone truck just keeps going towards its destination at a perfectly efficient speed, perfectly centered in the lane.
In plenty of places, you can stop a train simply by cutting the signal wire (because it will fail-safe).
Sure the cost of goods will go down the same way that we all work less hours now due to efficiencies that technology has provided.
It would seem that having trucks that can be on the road for 24 hours straight will result in less trucks being needed. I am sure the auto industry will make up for that that decrease in units sold by increasing the price per unit sold. I don't think there will be any dividend passed on to consumers.
It would seem that having trucks that can be on the road for 24 hours straight will result in less trucks being needed. I am sure the auto industry will make up for that that decrease in units sold by increasing the price per unit sold. I don't think there will be any dividend passed on to consumers.
All the Luddites arguing here that quality of life hasn't really increased in the past 200 years due to technological revolution should spend a year in a third world country away from modern medicine/electricity/internet. Also your viewpoint is incredibly patronising towards billions of people alive today who don't have access to these.
Automation is also going to hit white collar jobs. Tax attorneys, paralegals insurance agents and many such jobs will be effected. Self driving cars and trucks are just the tip of he iceberg because of Google more people are aware of it but machine learning and automation now is going to start hitting white collar jobs not just blue collar jobs.
A truck has quite a lot of kinetic energy, accidents involving trucks tend to be lethal. I wonder how long it will take until self driving technology will be save enough for this application.
Truck drivers need to work with their union(s) to lobby for a law that says that only union members can own an autonomous driving agent. Problem solved - we have self-driving trucks but trucking companies must "hire" an agent via a union member. To become a union member, you'll still have to a rigorous apprenticeship and training program - and of course pay your union dues.
Sounds like featherbedding. Putting pointless people in the middle just to skim money from the process. Who benefits? Nobody but them. Reminds me of how the railroads had to pay into the pension fund for Firemen, long after steam engines were dead and gone. Just because.
The same way that the unions in NYC have forced the MTA to keep the hugely expensive, 100 year old backup control & signaling systems on the fully-automated lines even though it's 100% not necessary.
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Is no more fetherbedding than any other regulated profession (doctors, layers) who get to themselves decide who is a member in good standing.
Ha! A guy that takes a cut for 'managing' an autodriving truck - which then drives itself - is very different. Because doctors and lawyers actually do work.
And to carry the analogy further, AI agents are now better than radiologists at analyzing images. But the AI agent works for/under the direction of the radiologist.
Why is that a model to aspire to? It makes me angry when I have to pay a doctor $100 for something stupid and trivial like a prescription for a vaccine.
Only a small percentage of drivers are union members, mostly those in the LTL segment of the industry.
I could see a primary disadvantage of self-driving trucks being that they're much easier to rob.
No, millennial lack of interest in trucking careers threatens the industry and self-driving trucks will save it.
This is a major point of automation. Yes, many jobs will be lost. But the prices of many goods will decrease.
The problem is that the current transition threatens to be so rapid as to seriously disrupt society. Perhaps new jobs will eventually be created to make up for those lost to automation (or perhaps not), but they won't be created fast enough to avoid the pain of all the rapid job losses that are coming.
Thankfully, society seems to be coming around to the idea that resistance is futile, and we need to address this problem before it becomes too overwhelming. Personally, I feel one of the most realistic options would be to reduce the standard work week to 4 days and/or 30 hours. People need to be kept busy, or society overall tends to start to crumble around the edges. This would mean people will need to shift their perspective on income, as it will likely be reduced. But this shouldn't be too bad, since all the automation will likely lead to reduced prices all around. Reducing your income by 25% may sound bad, but if practically everything becomes ~20-30% cheaper then you should have essentially the same standard of living, but with fewer working hours. Isn't that what we more or less would all like?
No matter what we wind up doing however, chances are there will be some period of difficult transition. All we can hope to do is make it as short and relatively painless as possible.