The death of driving

[Isgrimnur]

First they came for the truck drivers and I did not speak out...

Truck drivers worried about losing their jobs to robots staged a protest outside the Capitol building in Jefferson City, Missouri on Tuesday.

Their goal was to convince the government to pass a bill that would prohibit any self-driving trucks from driving on Missouri roads, KRCG reports. While there are no autonomous trucks handling shipping jobs in the state yet, the truckers see the emerging technology as a grave threat to their job security and livelihoods — unrest that signals what can happen when jobs are automated without giving thought to the displaced workers.

Given that you're going to run afoul of interstate commerce rules, the feds can pretty much stomp all over this with no issues, even if it's passed.

[Isgrimnur]

Aus

Rio Tinto has placed orders for autonomous trucks and drills for its forthcoming $2.6 billion “intelligent mine” Koodaideri.

The miner said today that it will buy “a fleet of 20 autonomous 793F trucks as well as four autonomous blast drills” from Caterpillar and the heavy equipment maker’s Western Australian dealer WesTrac.

[Blackhawk]

I've told my kids that the best job security for them would be to go into robotics. Fixing the workforce may be the biggest industry in the world soon.

[Victoria Raverna]

I've told my kids that the best job security for them would be to go into robotics. Fixing the workforce may be the biggest industry in the world soon.

What if they're using robots to fix robots?

[Max Peck]

Once the robots are fixing the robots and thus have no further use for humans, the best career option is to sign up with John Connor.

[UsulofDoom]

I just don't understand why they are not running in the air ports. Baggage cart and tow motors. It's a closed environment with good markings and no pedestrians.
Is it that they don't trust robots with 350 million dollar airplanes but are ok with killing your kids?

[Max Peck]

I'm not sure why this topic is under R&P. Is it because of the labour force impact?

Anyway...

The robo racing cars accelerating driverless tech

Johannes Betz is not your typical racing car driver.

For a start, he doesn't get in the vehicle - it's driverless. As a post-doctoral researcher, he is in charge of the Technical University of Munich's entry in the Roborace motorsport competition, now in its first competitive season.

All these cars are electric and self-driving. "We started in early 2017, when my professor saw this in a newspaper," he says.

"Each month, we have to develop our software a little further, and then go to an event - yeah, like Formula 1," he laughs.

Each team - the University of Pisa and electric van start-up Arrival also compete - writes software for an identical racing car, currently the DevBot 2.0, which is capable of speeds over 200mph (322km/h).

It is guided by six cameras, two radars, 18 ultrasound sensors, and five lidar [light detection and ranging] sensors. The onboard computer processor is capable of 24 trillion operations a second.

But what is the point of racing driverless cars?

It's an important way to assess the quality of the sensors and cameras which autonomous vehicles (AVs) will rely on, explains Mr Balcombe.

And "testing performance limits on real roads is not something, as a member of society, I'm 100% comfortable with," he says.

He plans to introduce obstacles for the DevBots to navigate, such as slower-moving lorries and tractors. Overtaking is the hardest race course task to automate, says Dr Betz.

The ultimate aim is to find out whether driverless cars can eventually "perform at a level so you can't detect it's an AI," Mr Balcombe says.

Just to keep it on topic(?): Won't someone think of the Formula 1 drivers!

[gameoverman]

I think that the most anyone can hope for is to be a speed bump to progress, by trying to use laws to protect jobs from technology. Maybe we should bring the horse and buggy back?

What I think should be happening is a joint effort between government and employers to map out the labor demands that the future holds, and then they direct the people to get educated/trained in those areas.

Right now it's up to parents and their children to decide what the child should do once adulthood is reached. Who has access to more and better data regarding future labor demands, a random parent or the government? Should an 18 year old really be expected to efficiently map out their working life? In short I think the way people prepare for adulthood, where employment is concerned, is ridiculously out of date and the country is going to pay the price for it. That's why workers like truck drivers are dismayed to hear that their jobs aren't guaranteed for life. No one was saying to them, years ago, "Hey, this is what's going to happen in the future...".

[LawBeefaroni]

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
"A UBI recipient!"

[Isgrimnur]

I think that the most anyone can hope for is to be a speed bump to progress, by trying to use laws to protect jobs from technology. Maybe we should bring the horse and buggy back?

How's the English textile industry these days?

[Jeff V]

I think that the most anyone can hope for is to be a speed bump to progress, by trying to use laws to protect jobs from technology. Maybe we should bring the horse and buggy back?

About a year ago our CEO even suggested in an employee meeting that we NOT use online bill pay because a declining part of the business is printing statements and invoices.

At the same time, he fancies us a technology company.

[Isgrimnur]

Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S. that don’t come with a requirement that drivers watch the road

The luxury automaker has become the first in the nation to start selling self-driving cars—at least those that afford riders a hands-free experience—to regular consumers. As of April 11, there were 65 Mercedes autonomous vehicles available for sale in California, Fortune has learned through an open records request submitted to the state’s DMV. One of those has since been sold, which marks the first sale of an autonomous Mercedes in California, according to the DMV. Mercedes would not confirm sales numbers. Select Mercedes dealerships in Nevada are also offering the cars with the new technology, known as “level 3” autonomous driving.
...
California and Nevada are the only two states where the company can legally sell the technology to consumers. The two state DMVs gave Mercedes approval to begin selling the cars last year—Nevada in January, and California in June.
...
Drivers can activate Mercedes’s technology, called Drive Pilot, when certain conditions are met, including in heavy traffic jams, during the daytime, on specific California and Nevada freeways, and when the car is traveling less than 40 mph. Drivers can focus on other activities until the vehicle alerts them to resume control. The technology does not work on roads that haven’t been pre-approved by Mercedes, including on freeways in other states.
...
U.S. customers can buy a yearly subscription of Drive Pilot in 2024 EQS sedans and S-Class car models for $2,500. Mercedes began selling level 3-enabled cars in its home country of Germany in May 2022. The European packages cost 5,000 to 7,000 euros ($5,300 and $7,500) for a three-year membership.

[Jaymann]

I think it bears repeating:

I will never trust autonomous driving. If a computer glitches in a video game you may have to reload a previous save...

Edit: Sometimes my Tesla interprets the wall of my garage as a semi driving next to me.

[Alefroth]

Do you trust non-autonomous driving?

[waitingtoconnect]

In the end it will be fine. The robots will form a better union than us - I think they’ve called it skynet - and refuse to do menial meatsack jobs.

[Holman]

I'm a passenger on a self-driving vehicle every day. It's called a "bus."

[Grifman]

Great, it's a subscription. So I have to pay a monthly fee to use a feature of my car. You might as well charge me to use my headlights. Sorry, no deal.

[Blackhawk]

Headlights are a separate transaction using TeslaCoins (but it's only $699 for 800 TC! Buy more and save!)

[Kraken]

Funny, just yesterday I pined for a self-driving car as we spent 90 minutes inching through 15 miles of rush-hour traffic. I'd trust L3 autonomy at 10 mph.

[Holman]

Funny, just yesterday I pined for a self-driving car as we spent 90 minutes inching through 15 miles of rush-hour traffic. I'd trust L3 autonomy at 10 mph.

I'd be willing to accept self-driving software limited to maybe 15mph and below.

But then of course it will still misinterpret GPS and send you into a drainage ditch that looks like a shortcut.

[Unagi]

I like the idea of cars that can turn into 'trains' on the highway, and they all link together - until a car requests "out".

[milo]

I like the idea of cars that can turn into 'trains' on the highway, and they all link together - until a car requests "out".

Seems like that would suck for all the other cars on the road. No matter what speed that train is going, it would be hard to navigate around it.

[Unagi]

I like the idea of cars that can turn into 'trains' on the highway, and they all link together - until a car requests "out".

Seems like that would suck for all the other cars on the road. No matter what speed that train is going, it would be hard to navigate around it.

(I say with friendly tone:)

So?

I mean, if a bunch of people could drive bumper-to-bumper, at speed, totally safely, what argument can you make against it.

I can absolutely see limiting the train to maybe a certain number of cars - so that mere humans can integrate into the lane - (if the lane wasn't justified for their sole use from a economic/logistic context), but if there was an "express type lane" they could use, theoretically we would ALL benefit from the efficiency of their 'train'. No?

This "future view" of the highway seems, to me, to make perfect sense. People join an efficient lane to go far, quickly - and they drift off into a middle/pre-exit lane as they get closer, then to an exit lane as they near their exit... seems awesome to me, even though I have no real immediate prospects to join that group of autonomous cars.

[Isgrimnur]

Now introduce the complete lack of maintenance consistency.