Uber self-driving car in Pittsburgh

[Starglider]

Alternatively, if this is the future of the working class, then capitalism is history. When the peasants have nothing to eat, they will storm the Bastille.

Bah, simply supply them with Soylent, reality TV and Twitter. For extra points, make class politics obsolete and replace it with infinitely self-convoluting identity politics.

[Simon_Jester]

The tricky bit is the Soylent ration.

A lot of very powerful oligarch types seem to be a bit short-sighted about the wisdom of supplying the Soylent.

[Elheru Aran]

That being said, truck trains sound spectacularly unsafe on the road. Having one vehicle slavishly following another is a great way to end up in an accident.

The general notion from what I understand is you'll have a bunch of trucks all lined up very closely, perhaps on a specially designated lane. That way there's a considerable aerodynamic savings as well (though I wouldn't like to be standing on the side of the road when one of those passes by...). Presumably also they would tend to run along the long stretches of interstate highway between major cities, notably west of the Appalachians all the way to roughly the Pacific coast-- you know those looooong bits of road that don't have much of anything interesting apart from a little town every few miles, maybe a truck stop every twentieth exit... I would not be surprised if these 'road trains' exited deliberately to centralized distribution centers where actual live drivers board the individual trucks to drive them to their ultimate destination.

Obviously there would have to be some major infrastructure changes before road trains became a thing, though.

As for self-driving cars... yeah. There's still going to be some demand for professional drivers on the level of a limo driver or personal driver. UP Cinnabar works for a train company driving their mechanics around or something like that-- while the day-to-day of just driving people around might become obsolete, he could still be useful in having a personal knowledge of the area he operates in, which isn't necessarily something that a self-driving car will have. Where the likely speed traps are, which gas stations have the best coffee and showers, where the bars with the cute girls are. That kind of thing.

Which does bring a thought to mind though. If self-driving cars became near universal, you would quite possibly not be able to contract travel time by judicious edging past the speed limit in areas with minimal police presence. Legal? Technically no, but in practice most cops won't nail you past the speed limit up to a certain point where they can be absolutely certain that you ARE speeding (~10 mph above the limit, as I recall). But if the car is driving, and it's aware of what the speed limit is where it's driving... it could well go up to that speed and no more (perhaps edging over it a bit on downhill stretches).

[Simon_Jester]

Obviously there would have to be some major infrastructure changes before road trains became a thing, though.

Among other things, I suspect that if fuel economy is enough of a concern to make this necessary, real trains start being more advantageous.

[Elheru Aran]

Obviously there would have to be some major infrastructure changes before road trains became a thing, though.

Among other things, I suspect that if fuel economy is enough of a concern to make this necessary, real trains start being more advantageous.

Yeah, but those would need some major work of their own-- hell they *already* need major work as it is.

To illustrate: recently I was looking up train routes from my location to Yosemite, California (looking to visit a friend there and didn't want to drive). It would've taken four days of riding a train from Atlanta, to New Orleans, to I want to say Salt Lake City, to Los Angeles, to San Francisco, then taking a bus from there to Yosemite... all this with a 3-year-old, mind you.

The driving time, by contrast, was something like 2 days' worth, three if you spaced it out a bit. It had the plus of being able to access Yosemite directly without the silliness of going all the way to Los Angeles first, and allowing us to use a personal vehicle so we wouldn't have to rent a car or anything like that to get around.

While existing track could be used, more routes need to be established in order to facilitate easy movement between the more distant but still economically important states and cities, especially between West and East coasts. Unlike aviation, there's less incentive to set up ridiculous routes like if you're flying to Chicago, you end up laying over in Los Angeles first, or something like that.

[K. A. Pital]

Alternatively, if this is the future of the working class, then capitalism is history. When the peasants have nothing to eat, they will storm the Bastille.

Bah, simply supply them with Soylent, reality TV and Twitter. For extra points, make class politics obsolete and replace it with infinitely self-convoluting identity politics.

And when they finally get brain-dead from long-term B12 deficiency and suffer severe digestion disorders...

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, but those would need some major work of their own-- hell they *already* need major work as it is.

To illustrate: recently I was looking up train routes from my location to Yosemite, California (looking to visit a friend there and didn't want to drive). It would've taken four days of riding a train from Atlanta, to New Orleans, to I want to say Salt Lake City, to Los Angeles, to San Francisco, then taking a bus from there to Yosemite... all this with a 3-year-old, mind you.

That's passenger rail, Elheru. There is almost no long distance passenger rail service in the US- only a very sparse web of poorly coordinated routes operated by Amtrak.

Basically, the combination of the interstate highways (which are about as fast as most 20th century passenger trains, and which offer a lot more control over scheduling and destination) and passenger jets (which are much faster than trains if you just want to be somewhere quickly) effectively wiped out passenger rail in the US by the 1970s. What little was left consolidated under Amtrak, which does what it profitably-ish can...

But you can't generalize from how weak passenger rail in America is to the state of freight rail. Freight rail is still a major mode of transportation and is profitable for multiple large corporations.

While existing track could be used, more routes need to be established in order to facilitate easy movement between the more distant but still economically important states and cities, especially between West and East coasts. Unlike aviation, there's less incentive to set up ridiculous routes like if you're flying to Chicago, you end up laying over in Los Angeles first, or something like that.

The tracks are there in a lot of cases, it's just that passenger trains don't run along them anymore.

[Elheru Aran]

Yes, I got turned around and thought we were talking about passenger rail for some reason. Never mind that then. If we're talking about trains for freight, then yes, that's certainly a legitimate interim alternative to road-trains.

I wonder what the cost might be to simply lay a secondary road alongside the interstates solely for such road-trains, similar to how train tracks work?

[Esquire]

It would cost just as much as an actual rail line would, while offering no particular advantages and costing massively more in fuel - trucks only make sense with massively decentralized supply chains* and cheap IC fuel, neither of which are long for this world.

[PREDATOR490]

The concept is nice enough but as expected it will likely spend years in testing before it became even remotely common. I would fully expect that some manned transport will still be required due to situations that an autopilot will not be able to compensate for.

Personally, if they were going to have some sort of automated transport. I would be starting with buses since they have fixed routes and stops. That seems like it would make for an easier transition for people to give up their vehicles in exchange for a public transport that actually works.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Alternatively, if this is the future of the working class, then capitalism is history. When the peasants have nothing to eat, they will storm the Bastille.

Either or. After all, you do remember what happened after the Bastille was stormed, n'est ce pas?

[Simon_Jester]

Things got ugly, for a wide variety of reasons- but it's better than half the human species or more being left to quietly starve.

Revolution is not, in itself, a good thing. Despite that, it is sometimes the only way to do anything about an intolerable problem created by a power structure that is unwilling or unable to reform itself.

And I would argue that this is one of the reasons democracy is such a good thing in government. Democracy is a good thing not so much because of inherent virtues, and not so much because it is more efficient, though it often is. Democracy is especially good because it prevents revolutions from becoming necessary. Democracy is the only form of government that can reliably prevent a popular revolt, because if popular sentiment reaches a level permitting revolt, the government can peacefully change to accomodate the wishes of the prospective rebels.

If capitalism reaches a point where it can subvert democracy completely, and 'demand' that the majority of humanity accept that they have become obsolete... either there will be a democratic transition to a new social order, or there will be a violent transition. The pressure inside the boiler cannot build up forever. Either the release valve will work and the system will change, or the idiot who welded the release valve shut will be blown up when the boiler explodes.

[cosmicalstorm]

I can't find original article now but someone mentioned that self-drive is going to utterly destroy rural America. Not only fly-over but drive-over is coming. The local economy in many places is dependent on speed tickets, motel stops, shop-stops, fueling. Once these go away the US is going to look very different.

Self driving Platoons of trucks have already crossed Europe.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... order-trip

On a related note robo-hookers might soon be a thing:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news ... me-8684685

[Guardsman Bass]

I'll believe the "robots taking all our jobs" thing when I actually see it happening, i.e. when we actually see mass and rising unemployment coupled with rising productivity in non-recession conditions. It's shrunken the workers needed for production in particular areas, but not in overall economies. But I've found that debating this with people tends to be futile, because the debates go into circles - I point out that this is not the history of labor-saving machinery and there's no indication it's happening now despite advances in robotics and automation, you point out that This Time is Different and the robots are smarter, etc, etc ad nauseum.

It can potentially cause major shifts in the economic landscape of the US that will be painful to adjust (if we don't bother seriously helping those who need help adjusting). I do not think that will be an issue with taxis, though. There are about 234,000 taxi drivers in the US, so if self-driving cars replaced all of those jobs over ten years (unlikely) it would be an average job loss of 23,400 jobs/year, or 1950 jobs a month. That's nothing compared to the overall churn of job creation and destruction that happens every month and year. It'd be like how tons of milk man/ice man/etc jobs disappeared in the mid-twentieth century without major economic damage.

Personally, if they were going to have some sort of automated transport. I would be starting with buses since they have fixed routes and stops.

That's what is happening elsewhere. Greece tested out a self-driving shuttle running on a regular route.

[K. A. Pital]

Japan is one economy where labour-saving automation is coupled with huge industrial overcapacity. Robot density is among the highest in the world - twice higher than US and several times the European one.


Productivity has risen over the years:


As one can see, the unemployment rate is also steadily increasing:


Moreover, the job composition has changed from full-time to part-time:


And finally, real wages have fallen:


Is this sufficient or not? I feel like I have met your criteria of proof.

[Broomstick]

Alternatively, if this is the future of the working class, then capitalism is history. When the peasants have nothing to eat, they will storm the Bastille.

Bah, simply supply them with Soylent, reality TV and Twitter. For extra points, make class politics obsolete and replace it with infinitely self-convoluting identity politics.

The tricky bit is the Soylent ration.

A lot of very powerful oligarch types seem to be a bit short-sighted about the wisdom of supplying the Soylent.

What do you think food stamps are? The way it's set up in the US they're not so much about feeding the poor and starving but a subsidy for the agricultural industry.

Bread and circuses are not just for Ancient Rome. There are differences in the details for the modern world but the concept is the same.

[Broomstick]

It can potentially cause major shifts in the economic landscape of the US that will be painful to adjust (if we don't bother seriously helping those who need help adjusting). I do not think that will be an issue with taxis, though. There are about 234,000 taxi drivers in the US, so if self-driving cars replaced all of those jobs over ten years (unlikely) it would be an average job loss of 23,400 jobs/year, or 1950 jobs a month. That's nothing compared to the overall churn of job creation and destruction that happens every month and year. It'd be like how tons of milk man/ice man/etc jobs disappeared in the mid-twentieth century without major economic damage.

It took decades to phase out milk and ice delivery in the US, and when it happened, the drivers could easily transition to doing other delivery work such as for UPS, DHL, the US Postal System, deliveries for both large and small businesses, and so on. We're talking about, potentially, a much more abrupt transition that doesn't allow for human drivers to transfer to other driving jobs due to human drivers becoming obsolete.

[Simon_Jester]

Bah, simply supply them with Soylent, reality TV and Twitter. For extra points, make class politics obsolete and replace it with infinitely self-convoluting identity politics.

The tricky bit is the Soylent ration.

A lot of very powerful oligarch types seem to be a bit short-sighted about the wisdom of supplying the Soylent.

What do you think food stamps are? The way it's set up in the US they're not so much about feeding the poor and starving but a subsidy for the agricultural industry.

Bread and circuses are not just for Ancient Rome. There are differences in the details for the modern world but the concept is the same.

And you will note a surprising number of the sort of people who aspire to run the American corporate oligarchy, who do not really grasp this, and are opposed to even the small scale aid that food stamps represent. Or they are fixated on the idea that someone, somewhere, might spend a few dollars of them 'incorrectly.'

[Broomstick]

Well, yes, some of the corporate oligarchy don't want the masses to be free, fed, and safely entertained. They want slaves they can control. And no, I don't think that's hyperbole even if there are more polite terms for it like "indentured servitude" and "serfdom". They want slaves.

[Simon_Jester]

Suffice to say that this is predictably going to cause... friction... if we find ourselves living in an economy where a majority (or even a really large minority) of the population can't find a job, because it stops being profitable to employ unskilled labor at most jobs.

[Broomstick]

Re-think that.

It's not that unskilled labor will be unemployable, SKILLED labor will become unemployable.

[K. A. Pital]

Yup. Since when did professional drivers even become "unskilled labour"?.

[Guardsman Bass]

Is this sufficient or not? I feel like I have met your criteria of proof.

It's stronger than any other case I've seen, although that unemployment rate still is extremely low - and it's actually down to 3.2% now (your chart ends in 2013).

[Simon_Jester]

I suspect that whatever is done with self-driving vehicles, there will be a number of high-profile accidents caused by glitches, or by vehicles failing to correctly interpret subtle environmental cues (such as road signs that a human driver can read, but a robot can't).

This may lead to a weird transitional period where you can legally have a self-driving vehicle... but you can't legally have it running without an awake driver behind the wheel in case of unexpected emergency. That may not be a fully rational reaction but it wouldn't surprise me.

I can't find original article now but someone mentioned that self-drive is going to utterly destroy rural America. Not only fly-over but drive-over is coming. The local economy in many places is dependent on speed tickets, motel stops, shop-stops, fueling. Once these go away the US is going to look very different.

"Destroy" exaggerates the impact, but yes, it's going to make a significant dent in certain rural areas along the interstate highways. Not so much off the interstates, though. Much of rural America is itself a long way off the main paths from Point A to Point B.

I'll believe the "robots taking all our jobs" thing when I actually see it happening, i.e. when we actually see mass and rising unemployment coupled with rising productivity in non-recession conditions. It's shrunken the workers needed for production in particular areas, but not in overall economies. But I've found that debating this with people tends to be futile, because the debates go into circles - I point out that this is not the history of labor-saving machinery and there's no indication it's happening now despite advances in robotics and automation, you point out that This Time is Different and the robots are smarter, etc, etc ad nauseum.

The big difference is just that it's not obvious what kind of jobs could exist; there is no big growth sector to replace the current set of jobs.

There are a lot of things we could do to keep people employed. For instance, we could hire huge numbers of paraeducators in the schools and it would do wonders for education, which is exactly what we need to keep producing people who are employable in a post-automation society. But by and large, the economic pressure in modern America points very firmly away from hiring more human beings if you don't have to, because even expensive capital machinery costs less than labor.

This is the part that's new. In previous major shifts of employment, there were major sectors of the economy that had stopped hiring, but there were others that were still hiring actively, and that would find it profitable to hire more men whenever needed. Except during recessions, there were nearly always businesses that could expand linearly as a function of the number of people they hired, and labor was a proportionately smaller share of their expenses.

Re-think that.

It's not that unskilled labor will be unemployable, SKILLED labor will become unemployable.

I think my definition of "unskilled" needs a lot of revision. The category of labor that's going to get automated last is the category that involves complex situational judgments, extensive interpersonal interaction, or both, including most of the 'professions' and some varieties of skilled labor. Other varieties of skilled labor go out the window quickly, I recognize this.

I suppose I was lumping drivers in with unskilled labor because almost everyone in the US knows how to drive, even if they don't know how to do it as well and reliably as we'd want from a pro. And yes, I see that was a mistake.

[K. A. Pital]

Is this sufficient or not? I feel like I have met your criteria of proof.

It's stronger than any other case I've seen, although that unemployment rate still is extremely low - and it's actually down to 3.2% now (your chart ends in 2013).

The negative effects might be helped and alleviated by Japan's shrinking population.


The West may also avoid the problem of excessive unemployment through automation by having the working-age population collapse.

This, however, opens another can of worms.