Hoffa on self driving trucks

El Correcto

god is dead
It's one thing to program one stop with no commit time for a self driving car but a whole route that is constantly changing and has commit times.. I see no reason to be alarmed about this.
 

Dr.Brownz

Well-Known Member
Yours is. I don't think the generation after will be able to make a career in driving.

Seems like people said the same thing about the rail roads 20 years ago. Those guys make more than UPS drivers, (worse hours though) and have a more relaxed work environment.

Corporations will be slow to implement self driving vehicles due to the liability factor and public perception.

Again, one sensor goes out on a self driving vehicle and it doesn't see the edge of the seawall, sending that whole school bus into the Pacific!
 

dudebro

Well-Known Member
Seems like people said the same thing about the rail roads 20 years ago. Those guys make more than UPS drivers, (worse hours though) and have a more relaxed work environment.

Corporations will be slow to implement self driving vehicles due to the liability factor and public perception.

Again, one sensor goes out on a self driving vehicle and it doesn't see the edge of the seawall, sending that whole school bus into the Pacific!
Ok. Price of sensors comes down so I put 3 where I need one. I'm good.

Don't be so convinced this is way off. Since 2012, 34 states and DC have considered autonomous vehicle regulations. It's coming quickly.

Also, railroad engineers do much more than steer the train.
 
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DriveInDriveOut

Inordinately Right
Hundreds of years off. They haven't even developed reliable, non invasive and safe bio-neural-computer interface devices yet. They have projected a cat's vision onto a screen but that is a long way off from controlling computers entirely with your mind.
The idea is we will develop artificial intelligence capable of learning, to a point of runaway self improvement. It will create and solve without human help at all, doing things we can't even imagine at this point.
 

dudebro

Well-Known Member
Hundreds of years off. They haven't even developed reliable, non invasive and safe bio-neural-computer interface devices yet. They have projected a cat's vision onto a screen but that is a long way off from controlling computers entirely with your mind.
The point of the singularity is, it won't be IMPORTANT for a machine to interface with a human neural network, theirs will be much faster. We will be, in the words of Elon Musk, housecats.
 

FAVREFAN

Well-Known Member
The point of the singularity is, it won't be IMPORTANT for a machine to interface with a human neural network, theirs will be much faster. We will be, in the words of Elon Musk, housecats.

Nice one, lol. Musk has to be the coolest, down to earth genius of all time.

Very conveniently for this thread, for anyone who is interested in learning just how :censored2: in your pants close this is to happening.........head over to Tesla.com and check out Wednesday's announcement of Enhanced Autopilot and even way more exciting.......Full Autonomy equipment in all their models starting now. The hardware is now onboard all their models. Model S, Model X and the 2017-2018 Model III. The software will be turned on once they get government approval which is pending. 8 cameras, 12 sensors. 40X the computing power of the original Autopilot which has proved to be 200% safer than humans in it's Beta form. Massive redundancy in the new system.
I'm not going to sit here and try to convince the Luddites on this forum. Those in the know, who follow tech, are prepared for what is coming now, not 100 years from now.
I would say as far as UPS goes, Feeder guys have a bit more to worry about at this point than package car guys. And in that case, I'd say guys just starting out now. Anyone with a significant amount of time in will be safe as this tech will be slowly grandfathered in over time. Remember, Tesla is years ahead of their competition. And they aren't making semi trucks yet. But many truck manufacturers are developing fully autonomous trucks and a few have had finished prototypes testing for the past 1-2 years. Imagine, no pensions, no comp, no vacations, no down time, no weekends off, no holidays, etc...etc.......massive profits for the company to make. Is what it is. The economic benefits are endless with this tech from a company standpoint.

Package car guys need to worry a bit more about Amazon and its drone programs than autonomous vehicles at this point.
Once Amazon starts delivering our packages for our customers for pennies on the dollar using their drone network, it's going to first cut into new hires for package car but then job cuts down the road.
Of coarse at this point, we are only talking about packages that are 0-15 lbs within 15 miles of an Amazon Dist Ctr.
But that's a lot. And by the way, 85% of Amazon's shipments are under 15 lbs. Losing Amazons shipments is a small worry compared to what happens when they start delivering what used to be our packages for our customers.

There is a great level of excitement in all of this and a level of sadness as well. Humanity marches on, for better or worse. We must be prepared.
 

cheryl

I started this.
Staff member
Self-Driving Truck’s First Mission: A 120-Mile Beer Run - NY Times

The futurists of Silicon Valley may not have seen this one coming: The first commercial delivery made by a self-driving truck was 2,000 cases of Budweiser beer.

On Tuesday, Otto, the Uber-owned self-driving vehicle operation, announced the completion of its first commercial delivery, having delivered its beer load from Fort Collins, Colo., to Colorado Springs, a roughly 120-mile trip on Interstate 25.

In recent years, Uber has predicted a future in which you can ride in a self-driving car that will take you where you want to go, no driver necessary. But the idea that commercial trucking could be done by robot is a relatively new idea — and a potentially controversial one, given the possibility that robots could one day replace human drivers.
 

Dr.Brownz

Well-Known Member
The idea is we will develop artificial intelligence capable of learning, to a point of runaway self improvement. It will create and solve without human help at all, doing things we can't even imagine at this point.

There is no way to simulate creativity (not just mixing of variables) That is why this is so far off. Many people tend to discount existential problems like this.
 

104Feeder

Phoenix Feeder
The article is just using Hoffa's soundbite on self driving trucks to rail against California's pension issues. The Teamster pensions paid for by WCT have nothing to do with CalPERS. With regard to those, I agree that unions probably overstepped and negotiated sweetheart deals but nothing is really unsustainable when the California government has the right to tax their citizens as much as they want to.

I wish it had explored more about why Hoffa feels self driving trucks won't be a threat to our jobs. While the technology is still in it's infancy and has had some issues, it will probably be viable in the nearer-than-I-like future. If a driver is still sitting in the seat ready to take over it's not going to change a whole lot other than giving us less to do. Robotics won't be very good at connecting air hoses & light cords or rolling down trailer legs. To make those electric/automatic would cost billions of dollars. Also, who inspects the equipment as required by the FMCSA? So I think our jobs may eventually evolve but to get to the point where we are facing replacement is probably farther off than we think.
 

Coldworld

60 months and counting
The article is just using Hoffa's soundbite on self driving trucks to rail against California's pension issues. The Teamster pensions paid for by WCT have nothing to do with CalPERS. With regard to those, I agree that unions probably overstepped and negotiated sweetheart deals but nothing is really unsustainable when the California government has the right to tax their citizens as much as they want to.

I wish it had explored more about why Hoffa feels self driving trucks won't be a threat to our jobs. While the technology is still in it's infancy and has had some issues, it will probably be viable in the nearer-than-I-like future. If a driver is still sitting in the seat ready to take over it's not going to change a whole lot other than giving us less to do. Robotics won't be very good at connecting air hoses & light cords or rolling down trailer legs. To make those electric/automatic would cost billions of dollars. Also, who inspects the equipment as required by the FMCSA? So I think our jobs may eventually evolve but to get to the point where we are facing replacement is probably farther off than we think.
Well let's send all the jobs to China, have self driving cars and rigs, have doctors from India teleconferencing patients, auto checkout at stores, robot secretaries, this list could go on and on....we can all just be on welfare and bankrupt the country to the point where Russians and China could just attack from each coast and walk right in like hitler did in 1939....all this technology is going to totally ruin this world.... Wait and see
 
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