Automation comes to all trades in the end. Yes there will be job losses but they will be viewed as casualty of the event and will either get another job or sign on. A bit like the coal mines etc.
I recall back in the 70’s James Burke, Judith Hann or someone on Tomorrow’s World telling us that computers would lead to some sort of Utopia where we all worked say half a week and had so much leisure time golf courses and leisure centres would be heaving all the time.
Still waiting !
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Munchkin:
I recall back in the 70’s James Burke, Judith Hann or someone on Tomorrow’s World telling us that computers would lead to some sort of Utopia where we all worked say half a week and had so much leisure time golf courses and leisure centres would be heaving all the time.
Still waiting !Sent from my Redmi 4 using Tapatalk
Ah, maybe that’s actually the solution. All of us who lose our jobs to automation can work at the golf course servicing the people who own the robots that lost us our jobs because they’re have so much free time.
May be the problem is lots of people who worked in what some might call lower skilled jobs and with hard work could earn a good living. Now with automation and abundance of cheap labour as these jobs go there are few alternatives to earn the same money and they end up doing low paid jobs or on the dole. More automation , which will come is going to increase this.
Why are you all worrying about having a job, society places great value in work, getting up in the morning doing your bit is seen as an honourable thing to do.
By the latter half of this century A.I will be able to replace almost everything we now do, there is almost no single task that cannot be automated you won’t need to work the theory being that machines create the nations wealth and the citizens will be paid a wage for doing virtually nothing, theoretically it works.
As for boycotting companies that automate its pointless, it will come whether we like it or not.
I personally would love to be paid to do what I like, I have lots of hobbies and interests and work gets in the way given the chance I would never drive a truck ever again if a computer could do it for me.
I don’t want to waste my life driving a truck or walking around supermarkets or queuing up to pay for things or any other consumer related faff i have far more important things to be doing.
mike68:
Why are you all worrying about having a job, society places great value in work, getting up in the morning doing your bit is seen as an honourable thing to do.By the latter half of this century A.I will be able to replace almost everything we now do, there is almost no single task that cannot be automated you won’t need to work the theory being that machines create the nations wealth and the citizens will be paid a wage for doing virtually nothing, theoretically it works.
As for boycotting companies that automate its pointless, it will come whether we like it or not.
I personally would love to be paid to do what I like, I have lots of hobbies and interests and work gets in the way given the chance I would never drive a truck ever again if a computer could do it for me.
I don’t want to waste my life driving a truck or walking around supermarkets or queuing up to pay for things or any other consumer related faff i have far more important things to be doing.
Never a truer word spoken. Nice to hear someone that realises the benefits of things to come.
Franglais:
Rjan:
In my observation, they can barely even successfully automate haulage processes within a single site yet, or have a wagon reverse accurately onto a bay,I`ll argue with you there. On closed sites trucks are working successfully.
Shanghai container port, since 2017 has had shunter trucks and in Australia over a billion mile-tons moved since 2012. australianmining.com.au/new … milestone/
youtube.com/watch?v=N_Ag-0IqDAg
Agreed, but that is just based on having huge private dirt roads on quarries, empty of other traffic, where a tipper is just roughly following a map route and avoiding obstacles. A 5 year old could manage that, notwithstanding their likely lower endurance hour after hour.
Yet that is considered a wildly expensive investment and state of the art.
Rjan:
Even the simplest possible case of a car just making progress within the white lines on a well-engineered, brightly lit open road in the US, led to a pedestrian being run over. It’s bread and butter stuff not to hit anything. For as long as they need a driver to provide oversight or intervention even 0.1% of the time along a journey, they have to have him sat in the seat 100% of the time.Having a “driver” sitting bored out of his/her skull waiting for an emergency to happen, so they get summat to do won`t be a successful strategy, we can agree.
One pedestrian run over? After how many miles of safe running? Human drivers are far from perfect, and although there will be resistance, automation could prove safer than human drivers although they may not be accepted as such. Machines dont need to be perfect in order to be safer than us.
But how many miles of “safe running” actually involved difficult or complex circumstances? The Americans have generously specified roads, often on a grid pattern, and the testing locations have been chosen for being the very best of a good bunch.
It’s not the only accident to have happened. Another drove under the open underside of a trailer and tore it’s roof off. Even the sleepiest bridge-basher wouldn’t have attempted that. What world-class expert decided that obstructions above the level of the road didn’t need to be considered?
I’m not against these technologies - I think they’re great, with great potential. I just don’t think they’re even remotely close yet to being a practical replacement for drivers on a proper variety of roads.
Rjan:
But how many miles of “safe running” actually involved difficult or complex circumstances? The Americans have generously specified roads, often on a grid pattern, and the testing locations have been chosen for being the very best of a good bunch.It’s not the only accident to have happened. Another drove under the open underside of a trailer and tore it’s roof off. Even the sleepiest bridge-basher wouldn’t have attempted that. What world-class expert decided that obstructions above the level of the road didn’t need to be considered?
I’m not against these technologies - I think they’re great, with great potential. I just don’t think they’re even remotely close yet to being a practical replacement for drivers on a proper variety of roads.
You’re right there have been accidents but they are rare. In fact upon investigations most are found to be caused by driver error. Also for your 1 automated vehicle hitting a truck I can not doubt find 1000s of articles of a human driver hitting a truck.
But that’s largely irrelevant at the moment as automation is not at a point where it is comparable to human driving mainly due to the lack of fully automated vehicles.
I also think you are misunderstanding our point most of us agree that the technology is not there yet. But me for example believe it will be there in 20 years time easily.
Mainly due to the sheer amount of money going into it. And also because the technology is already here it is just not refined.
Look at the progress of video-games from 1999 to now. 20 years is along time to refine a already existing technology.
I believe at the moment they are spending alot of money in Africa hiring thousands of people just to carry out pattern recognition for the AI’s learning.
Like I said before it doesn’t need to be perfect just better then humans.
The way I see it ‘potentially’ happening is
- This vehicle is fully autonomous on the M25 and M6.
few years down the line - This vehicle is fully autonomous on all large motorways and a selection of A-roads like the A12, A406 etc.
And so on.
To this extent I believe not all roads will be ‘automated’.
Now a driver will still be required but driver interaction will be reduced. This could reduce accidents greatly just think about the sheer amount of accidents night trunking.
But again I don’t see this technology being available for a good while.
Eventually I do see drivers being removed completely from the cab though. Ye this will not be possible for all situations but trunking will surely be the first to go.
My point earlier was that we’ll need a massive change in how society works and finances itself. If we are to enjoy a leisure society then we, the workers, will be paying little or no taxes. To finance out leisure, business will have to be more heavily taxed to fund our “universal payment”. As is patently obvious at the moment it seems, to say the least, unwilling to do so.
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adam277:
Rjan:
But how many miles of “safe running” actually involved difficult or complex circumstances? The Americans have generously specified roads, often on a grid pattern, and the testing locations have been chosen for being the very best of a good bunch.It’s not the only accident to have happened. Another drove under the open underside of a trailer and tore it’s roof off. Even the sleepiest bridge-basher wouldn’t have attempted that. What world-class expert decided that obstructions above the level of the road didn’t need to be considered?
I’m not against these technologies - I think they’re great, with great potential. I just don’t think they’re even remotely close yet to being a practical replacement for drivers on a proper variety of roads.
You’re right there have been accidents but they are rare. In fact upon investigations most are found to be caused by driver error. Also for your 1 automated vehicle hitting a truck I can not doubt find 1000s of articles of a human driver hitting a truck.
But that’s largely irrelevant at the moment as automation is not at a point where it is comparable to human driving mainly due to the lack of fully automated vehicles.I also think you are misunderstanding our point most of us agree that the technology is not there yet. But me for example believe it will be there in 20 years time easily.
Mainly due to the sheer amount of money going into it. And also because the technology is already here it is just not refined.
Look at the progress of video-games from 1999 to now. 20 years is along time to refine a already existing technology.I believe at the moment they are spending alot of money in Africa hiring thousands of people just to carry out pattern recognition for the AI’s learning.
Like I said before it doesn’t need to be perfect just better then humans.
The way I see it ‘potentially’ happening is
- This vehicle is fully autonomous on the M25 and M6.
few years down the line- This vehicle is fully autonomous on all large motorways and a selection of A-roads like the A12, A406 etc.
And so on.
To this extent I believe not all roads will be ‘automated’.Now a driver will still be required but driver interaction will be reduced. This could reduce accidents greatly just think about the sheer amount of accidents night trunking.
But again I don’t see this technology being available for a good while.
Eventually I do see drivers being removed completely from the cab though. Ye this will not be possible for all situations but trunking will surely be the first to go.
I think that drivers will need to be replaced totally, rather than sit there ready to take over in an emergency.
Waiting there, staying alert, for something to do won’t work.
Pilots, apart from take-off/landing, have time to take over control before an aircraft buries itself. A vehicle will leave a road in a split second.
adam277:
Rjan:
Mainly due to the sheer amount of money going into it. And also because the technology is already here it is just not refined.
Look at the progress of video-games from 1999 to now. 20 years is along time to refine a already existing technology.Now a driver will still be required but driver interaction will be reduced. This could reduce accidents greatly just think about the sheer amount of accidents night trunking.
There will never be a shortage of people coming up with and continuing to research complete ■■■■■■■■, it’s lucrative in the extreme and beats the hell out of working for a living, you only have to look at the climate warming/change/catastrophe/emergency industry to see that in all its glory.
No bugger living the life of reilly enjoying seemingly unlimited funds whilst for years/decades producing bugger all is going to want it to stop, of course they’ll come up with encouraging papers to keep the latest politicians and managers of funds (with £££ signs going round in their eyes like a cartoon character 
) onside and the next £billion allocated to keeping the whole bloody ponzi scheme afloat.
As for a bod sitting there vegetating whilst the vehicle drives itself over the easy bits, but must be ready to take over at a moments notice and perform the right emergency maneuver to save the day when error 404 presents itself or the poxy 'puter freezes, if he’s been relaxing he won’t have the foggiest bloody idea what’s been happening or why the situation that Johnny 5 can’t cope with has arisen, if he’s expected to watch the thing doing its job constantly he might as well be driving anyway…and what exactly does a night trunker do anyway with a modern vehicle, answer, he steers the poxy thing, that’s it, little wonder the sods are falling asleep at the wheel at a 53 mph drone in the warmth and soft drone of a modern vehicle.
The only reason a responsible person will be required to be in the hot seat is for some unimportant disposable little bugger to take the blame when it all goes ■■■■ up and carnage ensues, those designing and making the big dosh arn’t going to be held responsible , receiving large wads of dosh no problem, taking responsibility? not on your nelly.
Drivers are not going to be replaced in Britain any time soon, only in headline white elephant non events.
My own personal view is that the dumbing down and deskilling of the industry is going to come to sudden bloody halt when the next downturn hits and borrowed money runs out, but lots of things are going to change then, thankfully they will have Brexit to blame, but any bugger with an ounce of common can see it coming.
Juddian:
adam277:
Rjan:
Mainly due to the sheer amount of money going into it. And also because the technology is already here it is just not refined.
Look at the progress of video-games from 1999 to now. 20 years is along time to refine a already existing technology.Now a driver will still be required but driver interaction will be reduced. This could reduce accidents greatly just think about the sheer amount of accidents night trunking.
There will never be a shortage of people coming up with and continuing to research complete ■■■■■■■■, it’s lucrative in the extreme and beats the hell out of working for a living, you only have to look at the climate warming/change/catastrophe/emergency industry to see that in all its glory.
No bugger living the life of reilly enjoying seemingly unlimited funds whilst for years/decades producing bugger all is going to want it to stop, of course they’ll come up with encouraging papers to keep the latest politicians and managers of funds (with £££ signs going round in their eyes like a cartoon characterAs for a bod sitting there vegetating whilst the vehicle drives itself over the easy bits, but must be ready to take over at a moments notice and perform the right emergency maneuver to save the day when error 404 presents itself or the poxy 'puter freezes, if he’s been relaxing he won’t have the foggiest bloody idea what’s been happening or why the situation that Johnny 5 can’t cope with has arisen, if he’s expected to watch the thing doing its job constantly he might as well be driving anyway…and what exactly does a night trunker do anyway with a modern vehicle, answer, he steers the poxy thing, that’s it, little wonder the sods are falling asleep at the wheel at a 53 mph drone in the warmth and soft drone of a modern vehicle.
The only reason a responsible person will be required to be in the hot seat is for some unimportant disposable little bugger to take the blame when it all goes ■■■■ up and carnage ensues, those designing and making the big dosh arn’t going to be held responsible , receiving large wads of dosh no problem, taking responsibility? not on your nelly.
Drivers are not going to be replaced in Britain any time soon, only in headline white elephant non events.
My own personal view is that the dumbing down and deskilling of the industry is going to come to sudden bloody halt when the next downturn hits and borrowed money runs out, but lots of things are going to change then, thankfully they will have Brexit to blame, but any bugger with an ounce of common can see it coming.
What research is a waste of time/money?
And more importantly how can we tell if it is going to be a waste, before it is carried out??
We can only know in advance if research will be cost effective if we know the result in advance, so it isn’t truly original research.
Research is being funded in this country increasingly by private companies.
Germany and Japan have greater public spending in research I think. We can see which countries are doing better in industry recently, and although research investment isn’t everything I reckon it is a factor.
adam277:
Rjan:
…Eventually I do see drivers being removed completely from the cab though. Ye this will not be possible for all situations but trunking will surely be the first to go.
I agree night trunking is the most likely first candidate, because the infrastructure is already highly simplified, has large amounts of spare capacity anyway at night (and the state will be happy if it frees up motorway capacity during the day), and it will be relatively easy to plumb in regional depots that are adjacent to the motorway.
With flyovers into depots, you could conceivably have a long-distance trunk where the vehicles never actually have to handle a traffic junction (or only merging into sparse traffic at the outset of the journey, after which they ride the same nearside lane all the way to their destination). At any rate, the current technology is certainly capable of dealing with simple junctions.
I remain less convinced that the challenges of urban driving (especially for trucks) have truly been solved even in principle though. The state won’t invest to redo almost the entire urban built environment just to please pioneers in the haulage industry who want the last mile of a delivery automated, and the haulage industry itself (especially in the fragmented state it’s in) will not spend billions up front to pay for road improvements when it costs them just a dozen pounds (or even two dozen pounds) an hour to work within existing infrastructure. And if they can’t automate the last mile, they always effectively need someone in the seat.
The cost of drivers is not even a significant part of the overall costs of goods distribution. The machines will still need to be paid for, the sites paid for, the fuel paid for, the management paid for, the people and machines who handle the goods on and off the wagon will still need to be paid for, the mechanics who check and service the machines (and recover them from difficulty) will need to be paid for. It’s not the panacea people imagine.
Franglais:
Juddian:
…What research is a waste of time/money?
And more importantly how can we tell if it is going to be a waste, before it is carried out??
We can only know in advance if research will be cost effective if we know the result in advance, so it isn’t truly original research.
Research is being funded in this country increasingly by private companies.
Germany and Japan have greater public spending in research I think. We can see which countries are doing better in industry recently, and although research investment isn’t everything I reckon it is a factor.
Agreed. Any research is almost always useful for something, in the end.
The main factor with automated vehicles firstly is that they probably have military applications, and the American state is especially interested in that, and secondly there is a lot of hype because for those hyping these technologies, it is good profitable business to do so.
The companies investing in driver automation don’t have a single penny in profit to show for it yet, but at least for the time being their management and professionals do have good jobs, and it’s a one-way bet for them, if not for the investors.
Franglais:
Juddian:
adam277:
Rjan:
Mainly due to the sheer amount of money going into it. And also because the technology is already here it is just not refined.
Look at the progress of video-games from 1999 to now. 20 years is along time to refine a already existing technology.Now a driver will still be required but driver interaction will be reduced. This could reduce accidents greatly just think about the sheer amount of accidents night trunking.
There will never be a shortage of people coming up with and continuing to research complete ■■■■■■■■, it’s lucrative in the extreme and beats the hell out of working for a living, you only have to look at the climate warming/change/catastrophe/emergency industry to see that in all its glory.
No bugger living the life of reilly enjoying seemingly unlimited funds whilst for years/decades producing bugger all is going to want it to stop, of course they’ll come up with encouraging papers to keep the latest politicians and managers of funds (with £££ signs going round in their eyes like a cartoon characterAs for a bod sitting there vegetating whilst the vehicle drives itself over the easy bits, but must be ready to take over at a moments notice and perform the right emergency maneuver to save the day when error 404 presents itself or the poxy 'puter freezes, if he’s been relaxing he won’t have the foggiest bloody idea what’s been happening or why the situation that Johnny 5 can’t cope with has arisen, if he’s expected to watch the thing doing its job constantly he might as well be driving anyway…and what exactly does a night trunker do anyway with a modern vehicle, answer, he steers the poxy thing, that’s it, little wonder the sods are falling asleep at the wheel at a 53 mph drone in the warmth and soft drone of a modern vehicle.
The only reason a responsible person will be required to be in the hot seat is for some unimportant disposable little bugger to take the blame when it all goes ■■■■ up and carnage ensues, those designing and making the big dosh arn’t going to be held responsible , receiving large wads of dosh no problem, taking responsibility? not on your nelly.
Drivers are not going to be replaced in Britain any time soon, only in headline white elephant non events.
My own personal view is that the dumbing down and deskilling of the industry is going to come to sudden bloody halt when the next downturn hits and borrowed money runs out, but lots of things are going to change then, thankfully they will have Brexit to blame, but any bugger with an ounce of common can see it coming.
What research is a waste of time/money?
And more importantly how can we tell if it is going to be a waste, before it is carried out??
We can only know in advance if research will be cost effective if we know the result in advance, so it isn’t truly original research.
Research is being funded in this country increasingly by private companies.
Germany and Japan have greater public spending in research I think. We can see which countries are doing better in industry recently, and although research investment isn’t everything I reckon it is a factor.
+1 Research is extremely important especially for automation. Progression is moving very quickly although mostly still being tried and tested at the moment.
There are certainly going to be big changes throughout the world in the next couple of decades whether we like it or not and most for the better.
Autonomous vehicles are further away now than they were two years ago.
Level 4 vehicles (vehicle drives itself, with a human to take over in difficult situation) have now struck a rock.
The vehicle manufacturers have a protocol which states if the human doesn’t take over in a situation that the vehicle can’t cope with, then the vehicle will stop (for instance it will stop on the running carriageway of a motorway, or half-way around a blind bend).
The dangers of this are obvious.
The insurance industry has declared this unacceptable, and said they will only cover a vehicle that, in those circumstances, will get to a safe space and then stop. If the vehicle can’t cope with the situation, then, of course, it can’t take itself to a safe space and then stop.
Juddian and others say that we should resist automation by small acts of rebellion, like insisting that a real person checks out their groceries or they disable all the fuel/pollution saving measures on their cars.
During the late 18th-century handloom weavers burned mills and pieces of factory machinery and textile workers destroyed industrial equipment. In the early 19th-century, in Nottingham, the Luddite movement began which culminated in a region-wide rebellion that lasted from 1811 to 1816. Mill and factory owners took to shooting protesters and eventually the movement was suppressed with legal and military force.
Those men gave up their lives for a cause they believed in but to no avail. In any case, their protests would only have delayed the introduction of automation into the mills because if they stopped it in Nottingham, you can be sure that someone in Lancashire would have embraced the technology and put them out of business with the ex-workers left to starve.
I GB PLC doesn’t jump onto the automated bandwaggon, then you can be sure that the Chinese or the Indians or the Tibetans will and it will be us who are left with no jobs and no other source of income.
Santa:
Juddian and others say that we should resist automation by small acts of rebellion, like insisting that a real person checks out their groceries or they disable all the fuel/pollution saving measures on their cars.During the late 18th-century handloom weavers burned mills and pieces of factory machinery and textile workers destroyed industrial equipment. In the early 19th-century, in Nottingham, the Luddite movement began which culminated in a region-wide rebellion that lasted from 1811 to 1816. Mill and factory owners took to shooting protesters and eventually the movement was suppressed with legal and military force.
Those men gave up their lives for a cause they believed in but to no avail. In any case, their protests would only have delayed the introduction of automation into the mills because if they stopped it in Nottingham, you can be sure that someone in Lancashire would have embraced the technology and put them out of business with the ex-workers left to starve.
I GB PLC doesn’t jump onto the automated bandwaggon, then you can be sure that the Chinese or the Indians or the Tibetans will and it will be us who are left with no jobs and no other source of income.
Well said.
These technologies can’t be “un-invented”.
Atoms can be split for electric power generation or for destructive explosions. Automation can put workers on scrap heaps, or release them from drudgery.
It is up to us as societies, to choose which path to take.
A rich few tech giants, with a large number of poor plebs, or a more equitable distribution of wealth?
And that applies across borders, as much as inside nations. Will poor people flock here if their own countries are as wealthier?
All the ex truck drivers can become security guards on trucks. Imagine how easy it will be to stop an autonomous truck.