The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

A convoy of self-driving trucks recently drove across Europe and arrived at the Port of Rotterdam. No technology will automate away more jobs — or drive more economic efficiency — than the driverless truck.

Shipping a full truckload from L.A.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: techcrunch.com

I sat next to a politician on a plane last week who quizzed me and then told me that driving is the number one occupation for men in the world. The irony is that the industry can’t entice young people into the role and there is a major shortage of truck drivers. Young people don’t want the work.

They simply can’t get enough drivers and that causes major problems to the value chain in business, food, pretty much everything we do. In most countries trucks are the most efficient and essential form of getting goods from manufacturers, and from ports, to customers or the next part of the value chain.

It will be a long time before humans are fully replaced, but given not enough people want to drive these vehicles, right now that also means we are paying too much for our goods and services. As the writer pointed out, trucks are also limited by the safety requirements that limit the number of hours a driver is permitted to operate the vehicle, whilst the trucks themselves would be more productive and efficient if they could be used 24:7.

Solving the road freight problem will have major spin-offs for other industries and will create new jobs as most new technologies do.

When I was at elementary school I was told that my problem was going to be what to do with my spare time because technology was going to replace a large proportion of jobs. So why am I working 50+ hour weeks? We shouldn’t be watching these new technologies with angst, we should be thinking about how to take advantage of reduced freight costs and increased efficiency.

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