Longtime readers will know that one of my long held fears is an AI takeover of trucking and automated trucking. Not because I fear the technology (although if the AI is as bad as Tesla, it scares the hell out of me), but because I grew up in the Ohio Valley in the 70’s and 80’s and have seen what happens when there is massive disruption in workforces. WV and this region STILL have not recovered from the job losses associated with the deindustrialization of the region- the massive losses from the steel mill, mining, petrochemical, glass factories, etc., rocked this area, and while Pittsburgh and Cleveland proper are having a touch of a renaissance, the rest of us are still mired in poverty at a third world status. Entire counties have nothing but ghost towns where steel and mining towns once thrived.
Now don’t think I am pining for the days of unbreathable air and having acid runoff of iron, copper and mercury pour out of mines into waters and have mills and petrochemicals dumping arsenic, cadmium and a whole host of shit into the ground and water. I’m not supportive of any of that and quite frankly am glad it is gone. It’s one of the reasons why I am so against fracking- I know what happens to the people and land and water around these kinds of activities, and it is never the fucking rosy scenario presented when say people want to build a cracker plant near you.
However, just as bad in the short term is the social upheaval. Were trucking jobs to be automated and those workers displaced, we are talking about HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of jobs. And the impact will be catastrophic, and most people simply have no idea how much of the work force is involved in trucking. Here’s a little map:
That map is ten years old, but you get the point.
The point of all this is that large and rapid changes in the trucking industry scare the fuck out of me because they will almost always be bad. This is an industry in which the workers are regularly used to being fucked, whether it be by the deregulation act in the 1980‘s which was a catastrophe for drivers, fuel shocks, etc. And right now, we are on the Eve of the biggest bankruptcy in trucking ever, dwarfing even the CF bankruptcy in 2002. With the CF bankruptcy, over 8000 drivers lost their jobs. When Yellow ceases operations on Monday, we’re talking three times that number:
From the Great Recession to 2020, Yellow nearly went bankrupt four times. In each episode, the trucking giant was saved — thanks to concessions from lenders, the Teamsters union, the federal government or often all three.
As a result, some of Yellow’s 30,000 employees weren’t too scared when the company began warning this summer that the end times were coming again. “It’s like crying wolf at this point,” Yellow mechanic Brian Atchely told FreightWaves earlier this month.
Now — as a strike looms, customers begin to pull freight and the Teamsters union refuses to meet — industry watchers are on alert that the trucking fleet may finally shutter. Ahead of a federal court hearing on Friday, Yellow said a work stoppage could force the company into a Chapter 7 liquidation bankruptcy proceeding.
Truck drivers are grappling with the idea that they could lose their jobs. Some 22,000 Teamsters members work at Yellow.
Paul Duquette, who works at the company’s Youngstown, Ohio, terminal, joined Yellow 11 years ago after his previous union trucking employer closed. He told FreightWaves on Friday morning that he and his colleagues are clearing the docks of freight now.
“I don’t see things happening in a good light right now,” Duquette said. “It’s sad.”
It’s been a mess for a while:
A beleaguered trucking business that received a $700 million pandemic-era loan from the federal government may be forced to file for bankruptcy protection this summer amid a dispute with its union, a development that could leave American taxpayers stuck with a failed company.
The financial woes at the business, Yellow, which previously went by the name YRC Worldwide, have been building for years. The company lost more than $100 million in 2019 and has more than $1.5 billion in outstanding debt, including the government loan. In 2022, YRC, which ships meal kits, protective equipment and other supplies to military bases, agreed to pay $6.85 million to settle a federal lawsuit that accused it of defrauding the Defense Department.
In 2020, the Trump administration, which had ties to the company and its executives, agreed to give the firm a pandemic relief loan in exchange for the federal government assuming a 30 percent equity stake in the company.
They company, of course, is trying to pin this on the Teamsters, which is nonsense on stilts, because their dispute with the Teamsters is THEM NOT PAYING WHAT THEY ALREADY OWE.
The video, believed to be from earlier this week, shows furious workers in a depot after hearing that the company has failed to make a $50 million payment for employee benefits.
Pension accruals and employee healthcare is also set to be suspended on July 23.
In the footage the employee shouts and paces back and forth, yelling: ‘Nobody tell me about why am I getting emotional.’
He continues: ‘I’ve been here thirty years. Nobody tell me to calm down. Analyze that s****.’
Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement: ‘Yellow has failed its workers once again and continues to neglect its responsibilities.
At any rate, keep your eye on this one, and hopefully there are some folks who can offer up more in the comments, especially some discussion of LTL and how even though volume is down, profitability is up, etc.
Shalimar
Sure it will suck for hundreds of thousands to lose good jobs, but on a positive note more poverty should open up hundreds of thousands of minimum wage policing and prison guard jobs to keep the peasants in line.
John Revolta
I can’t read NYT articles. What’s the problem with Yellow? Why all the debt and the losses? Just plain mismanagement? Normally I’d suspect some vulture capitalists were squeezing the place dry but I don’t see anything about that here……..
Shalimar
Snark aside, I did contract work for YRC when I was a truck driver. One of the few big trucking companies that is unionized. Pay well, secure jobs. It would be a big loss if the company goes under.
Baud
I did not even hear about this. Quite a turnaround from the days of Obama saving GM and the Republicans calling it Government Motors.
Cain
@John Revolta: there is always a hedge fund involved. They are probably all in on AI as a way to negotiate against labor costs.
AI is not going to be the savior they think it is. Now they could calculate risks and think that the lawsuits for injury will be only percentage of the cost for labor.
WV and others also have a problem with not wanting to adapt to changing markets. The capitalist system they worship so much demands it of them.
Dangerman
AI Trucking will be considered great until the first accident that looks like the beginning of Beverly Hills Cop. Then insurance rates will skyrocket and back to liveware.
Paul M Gottlieb
Is this the same company that was known as “YELLOW FREIGHT” back in the early 1990’s?
Shalimar
@Paul M Gottlieb: Yes it is
raven
Ah, the Glassworks Lounge in Oglebay Park!
Oops, looks like it’s the Glassworks Grill now.
trollhattan
“Is this Biden’s Solyndra?”
“Trump did it.”
“Biden’s Solyndra!
IDK much about trucking, just there’s too damn many of the things on the highways, breaking the pavement into smithereens faster than it can be repaired.
trollhattan
@Dangerman:
Giant strings of semis trundling down the interstate at exactly the truck speed limit will create open highway war.
Kelly
The Consolidated Freightways bankruptcy was a bust out. Executives split the company to put pension obligations and the union jobs in a company doomed to fail. I worked for CF for in 1980-81. I was long gone by the time of the bust out. I have several friends whose pensions went from starting at 55 after 30 year with the company to a pension guarantee corp pension starting at 65 and the checks they’d finally get at 65 would be half what they were promised at 55. They were around 50 at the time of the bankruptcy. They had good skills and made it work but “what the Hell I gotta work another 15 years instead of 5!!!!”. Decades of diligence and loyalty trashed.
sukabi
@trollhattan: it’ll also be a hacker and hijacker playground ….
Another Scott
Made me look. YELL is basically a penny stock now (was around $460,000 a share in February 2005, is around $1 now).
My grandfather was a truck driver – in the ’50s and ’60s he drove those spider-web-like car-carrier trucks (and loaded and unloaded the cars from them) for a small company that contracted with Ford. One thing I vaguely remember (and may have the details wrong) was that his Teamsters pension was reduced by whatever increase he got in Social Security. It seemed unfair to me.
More consolidation in the industry, and yet more pressure on truckers wages, working conditions, and benefits, is probably inevitable without federal action. It’s hard to see that happening anytime soon. :-(
Cheers,
Scott.
oatler
For-Profit Online University is our End.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQLdhVpLBVE
Baud
@Another Scott:
Especially because most of these guys are committed Republicans.
rikyrah
Will keep a lookout.
I am terrified of self-driving anything. It’s already been proven that AI is racist and a lot of it doesn’t pick up Black people.
And, this is cars.
I can’t even imagine having the massive trucks , trusting them with AI.
Nope.
Uh uh
Baud
I thought two years ago there was a trucker shortage.
Jay
All real world tests of AI drivers have failed, because real world road conditions suck.
When AI jets a real job, it’s going to be writing, customer service, voice acting, middle management, etc.
Baud
@Jay:
And the most important of all, blog posting.
Another Scott
@Baud: You mean business owners screaming that nobody wants to work were giving a distorted picture of the labor market and the wages they were offering??!
Cheers,
Scott.
SpaceUnit
If the trucking sector dries up what happens to the country music industry?
raven
@Baud:
Hot Licks, Cold Steel & Truckers Favorites [1972] – Commander Cody And His Lost Planet Airmen
raven
@SpaceUnit: You rang
BR
As much as I wish it weren’t the case, Waymo may be very close to really accomplishing this at least for cars. Like most tech, it’s hyped to the moon and then falls way short and then quietly actually happens. Google/Waymo self driving was hyped a decade ago but not in Phoenix it’s working. I know all the caveats, and am not advocating it, just relaying that it really is working there. No idea if they plan to do trucks.
Yarrow
@raven: Did you see a Bulldog is leading at The Open?
Kelly
Reinventing the freight train while socializing the cost of right of way maintenance.
Jay
@Baud:
There is still a forecast of a trucker shortage.
Drivers are retiring faster than new drivers are starting, there are more independents than Union drivers, costs have gone through the roof to get started and keep running, and both wages and rates are down.
Baud
@SpaceUnit:
Probably forced to write songs about lynching black people in small towns.
SiubhanDuinne
I assume executive suite compensation is also being suspended. //s
Omnes Omnibus
@BR: What do you mean by “it’s working?” Working how? Doing what?
CaseyL
Wikipedia tells me Yellow went on a buying binge from 2003-2009, absorbing nearly every other trucking and shipping-logistics company in the country. No telling how many people lost their jobs and pensions in all that, but probably many many.
So, it looks like they overextended, very likely stripped every subsidiary of its assets, got the $900M from the Trump Administration, and STILL are going broke.
That’s got to be more parasitism than “just” incompetence. That’s late stage capitalism.
A forensic accountant would have a field day.
Baud
@CaseyL:
It’s also early stage capitalism.
raven
@Yarrow: Oh yea, I hope he holds up.
Yarrow
@raven: It’s an impressive lead!
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Yawn. Been done.
BR
@Omnes Omnibus:
Running as a commercial service picking up passengers and taking them to their destinations.
Once again I should add yes I know the caveats — the cars do get stuck every once in a while, Phoenix has easy roads and easy weather, etc. But the bottom line is I see wishful thinking among anti-robotic taxi folks that the tech is a total flop because of how bad Tesla has done with it or reports of how things were five years ago.
Another Scott
@BR: https://waymo.com/waymo-via/
I agree that they seem to be doing the R&D right. And 50-100 years from now, one has to think that there will be lots more of these things on the roads. But approaches used by Uber and Tesla and all the other hype machines aren’t going to get us there. There’s a LOT of hardware and software on the Waymo things…
Cheers,
Scott.
raven
@Yarrow: With the Open and soccer in Australia and New Zealand I’m glad I have the unlimited DVR on YouTube tv!
Brachiator
@Cain:
What is the practical solution to this? When markets change, is the government supposed to step in and keep an industry the way it used to be?
BR
@Another Scott:
Exactly. Waymo built a whole fake city in the middle of nowhere just to test out what happens in all kinds of situations, where someone rides a bike out from behind a stopped truck into the path of the vehicle, or whatever. And they used expensive sensors rather than going cheap like Tesla which relies on cameras only.
Yarrow
@raven: It’s a lot to keep up with. My neighbors are in New Zealand. They sent me pictures from the match last night. Well, daytime their time.
Omnes Omnibus
@BR: You can still put me down as a skeptic.
Dangerman
@trollhattan: Giant strings of Semi’s doing speed limit on I5 in Central Valley will have their tires slashed.
Cain
@BR:
I suspect that our phones and cars will be outfitted with ways to alert driverless AI driven cars. Like a longer range NFC.
That way they can reduce risk.
Cars could also talk with each other and with AI driven cars.
Cain
@Brachiator:
That’s exactly what the GOP is promising them. It’s all a lie.
Baud
@Brachiator:
In theory, the best practical solution is for governments to work to diversify their economies.
HypersphericalCow
You mentioned fracking – my parents live in semi rural Western PA, and for the last decade, they’ve complained about giant tanker trucks ful of NON-POTABLE WATER from fracking operations, tearing up the back roads that were not designed for anything remotely that heavy.
Brachiator
@Cain:
Very true.
@Baud:
This still does not mean that governments can rescue dying companies or even dying industries.
trollhattan
@sukabi:
Never thought of that. “Why are we getting so many visa applications from Somalia?”
trollhattan
@SpaceUnit: “Hot Gal, Cold Beer, Tesla Trunk” will be a hard sale on country radio.
gwangung
@Brachiator: Or that individuals will accept the help.
bbleh
Not my specialty, but from what I know of the economics of trucking, it’s a sordid mess, primarily because of surpluses in both capacity and drivers (the height of COVID excepted, but that’s not the only reason there was a shortage) creating ever-downward pressure on rates and wages, which is compounded by the existence of non-employee “independent” drivers. At the low end of things, it’s an absolutely brutal way to earn something approaching a living. Also, for long-haul shipments, it’s competing with rail, which both has enjoyed at least 150 years of subsidies (not to say that the trucking industry has not also benefited from subsidies) and itself is subject to the same supply-driven downward pressure on rates (and thus wages). Trucking — at least at the low end — is in some ways almost the cleanest example of Econ-101 “perfect competition,” where in equilibrium everybody is just barely squeaking by.
I got no insight into management structure or financing, but it’s pretty obvious both industries have been working to push pain down and profit up for quite some time (eg rail staffing levels and lack of paid sick days), and per the above there’s a lot of pain.
As to AI-assisted “truck trains,” I fear it’s both inevitable and a series of spectacular disasters waiting to happen. (And yes, we already have those and they’re called trains, but there are differences, notably the ability of the “cars” to meet up with local drivers and go their separate ways as required, and of course the industries are in competition.) Some bright spark is gonna sell it to some VCs, and they’re gonna do it, and the nightmarish stories of highway “incidents” involving passenger vehicles and truck-trains are gonna employ a lot of PR flacks.
(Assuming of course that global warming catastrophes don’t cause large segments of the economy to collapse completely, but we’re not supposed to do climate-change doomerism.)
Another Scott
@oatler: Oooh. That’s good.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
narya
Too bad they can’t Anchor Steam/Bob’s Red Mill/King Arthur co-op their way out of it . . . honestly, I’d really like to see more worker-owned enterprises. (I realize Bob’s is different there–the owner gave it to the employees–but some of the principles are the same.) There’s been enough experience with it, maybe, to avoid some of the pitfalls. Not saying it would be easy (especially if anyone picks up that it inches close to anarcho-syndicalist arrangements . . .), but better than this anti-union vulture crap
ETA: and a union like the Teamsters might have enough cash to support it . . .
Brachiator
@BR:
What kind of sensors? Have there been any independent review of results?
I am skeptical that any kind of driverless vehicle can work, except in perfect test conditions with no real world variables.
However, I think that new kinds of sensors can assist human drivers.
The problem here is that idiots will insist on using driver assist tools as driverless mode.
Burnspbesq
@Another Scott:
Your memory is dead on. “Social security integration” was a common scam to reduce pension obligations. Doctors were among the worst abusers. Congress finally did away with in the 1980s.
Kirk
Data displays, even with the best of intentions, can be deceptive. Example, the map John posts is here. The site has three “why are drivers so big” caveats and I’d like to present point three:
In this case, government is census which is the source. The information is per the census departments data.
Kind of important because there’s another source: the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They have a table of top ten jobs in each state here. Heavy and Tractor-trailer drivers show up on the lists of 19 states.
I agree with John’s main points. I’ve often also noted the concern of the effect of technology across all the industries, though my focus has been on the change from demand to supply economy because in my opinion (not an expert) that’s the more universally disruptive aspect.
And I don’t have a good idea how to deal with it.
Burnspbesq
@Baud:
Can I get a “f**k Jason Aldean” from the congregation?
Another Scott
@Burnspbesq: Thanks very much.
I saw one of his last Teamsters pension check stubs. $100 for a month in the early 1980s.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
West of the Rockies
@Burnspbesq:
Amen from the congregation. Toxic masculinity man-child.
BR
@Brachiator:
The full gamut, lidar, radar, cameras, and I’m sure others I don’t know about. Lidar has always been thought to be the best option but originally each unit cost nearly $100k. My understanding is that it has come down like 50x in price since a decade ago. Tesla didn’t want to pay for lidar so they just made the excuse that lidar is unnecessary, but clearly camera-only driving isn’t working well.
That’s not to say lidar is going to be perfect either, and once again I am not advocating for robotaxis. But what I am saying is that they’re actually operational at a level that the general public will probably think of as good enough or even better than ordinary taxis and so are likely to gain adoption (slowly at first, but I’d guess they’ll be common in major US cities by the end of the decade) whether we want it to or not. The same tech can be used for long-haul trucking and it seems they are planning to do that.
Elizabelle
@Burnspbesq: I will tell you how naive I am.
I heard a few of the lyrics from the song, and thought it might be about being against the J6 insurrection. But apparently not …
Country music. Some good stuff, and a lot of whining about “they don’t like us, they think we’re stupid, just can’t get ahead.”
Ken
It worked for the US mohair industry…
Baud
@Elizabelle:
You’re not naive. Just a good person.
Captain C
@Burnspbesq: Fuck him with a prickly pear!
Betsy
https://d0ctrine.com/2022/09/16/on-bicycles-vs-self-driving-cars/#jp-carousel-16108
Brachiator
@BR:
I have read a little about these systems. It seems that variations of radar, LIDAR and cameras can be deployed. Also, LIDAR has some deficiencies.
Also, I am not clear on some issues of motion detection, sensing road conditions and obstacles. There was also something I saw once about fog, insects. There are times when weather conditions are so bad that drivers are encouraged to stay off the roads. There may be similar situations for driverless vehicles, even though they might be able to handle some conditions that deter human drivers.
Ultimately, good enough is not sufficient. Driverless cars will need to be significantly safer than conventional driving, in terms of accidents per thousand or million miles. And a few spectacular accidents might shake faith in any system.
Driverless systems must be better than an alert driver, and must not introduce new problems based on its technology. Driver assist technologies have blind spots that humans don’t have.
I wonder how well technology might handle this situation. A human driver might see a cyclist or pedestrians not yet in the flow of traffic and make a mental note about how they may have to react. I am not certain how driverless technology makes a similar judgement.
Another Scott
@Betsy: They didn’t consider
tunnelsflying cars!Checkmate!!11ONE
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@narya:
There are a lot of independent truckers out there. But companies like to depend on people that don’t have as much independence and hold to tighter schedules because they are on a time clock. And then companies want to not spend a cent more than necessary to get any job done because they have shareholders and often silly rich owners, if they get big enough to bleed dry of every last penny. You also have, in the trucking industry, fuel costs that can vary widely, in a truck that doesn’t get near as good mileage as pretty much any automobile. Add in traffic, breakdowns, flat tires, and the business is really not suited to least cost/most return/study excessive profits. So if management is not working in the best interest of everyone, or for anyone but themselves, failure is likely. Many types of businesses are like this, don’t actually have repetitive controlled situations so they require non repetitive solutions. Many parts of the business system rely on controlled repetitive concepts. Some cannot actually do that. Do you purchase the same exact food in the same exact quantity every week, month? Likely not. That is a non controlled repetitive concept. Trucking is often a non controlled repetitive concept. Which is one reason why warehouses exist.
IOW this business stuff can be complicated, and most often actually is. As someone who has owned two small businesses that were worlds apart in what they did, even as some parts were similar, I can say that the concept of simplicity exists in very few business situations. Sort of like life often is.
Raven
@Yarrow: And you have to be careful here because people can’t resist posting about games in non- game threads!
Another Scott
@Brachiator: It looks like recent LIDAR uses 950 and 1550 nm (near IR – visible is around 380 – 700 nm). LaserFocusWorld.com:
Lots and lots of details to consider in this stuff.
Cheers,
Scott.
Yarrow
@Raven: Yes, for sure.
Citizen Alan
@Brachiator: The defining hypocrisy of the republican voter is the belief that the government should never do anything to help anyone else in any way whatsoever. And yet, where they are concerned, the government should step in to force multinational corporations to build and maintain factories in their shitty little hicktowns so that white boys who barely got a high school diploma can make $90,000 a year doing work that could be done cheaper and more efficiently by robots.
Kirk
One more thing I’d like to add about Yellow.
The union had a strike scheduled to start this monday (the 24th) over failure to pay benefits. Yellow had tried to get an injunction against the strike but this past week the court ruled against it.
There are a number of issues regarding Yellow’s management and operations that make me suggest you take any news – from either side – with a 48 hour pause and a large salt shaker handy.
Fedex freight handles twice as much LTL traffic. Old dominion is second, and while Yellow is third XPO is so close it could be considered tied.
Yellow had about $5.2B revenues in 2022 (last year I can find info) which was abut 8% of the total LTL market revenue for the year. That’ll hurt for a couple of weeks if they really go under, but it’s not going to cripple.
Trivia Man
I can answer the LTL question. Those loads typically pay by weight (per 100 lbs or CWT) and at different rates depending on distance and size of the shipment. Say, $20/ CWT if it is one pallet that weighs 1,000 lbs (rate of $200 + 20% extra for fuel) but only $6/ CWT if it’s 10 pallets that weigh 10,000 lbs total (rate of $600 + 20% for fuel). You move 10x the weight but only get paid 3x the money.
Notice that if you can get 10 small loads you get the full $2,000 but you also have to load and unload less efficiently and likely have lots of different size stacks that mean you lose cubic space and can’t fill the truck as much.
Source: 25 years in trucking (office, not driving) in all aspects of the supply chain. Emphasis on relationships and finding ways to increase process efficiency which drives out costs AND improves quality of life for everyone involved.
AMA!
Trivia Man
Fun fact: there have been many efforts to increase allowed truck weights over the years (Canada is higher and some states have higher limits if you don’t leave the state or drive on the Interstate).Two main lobbying forces oppose: AAA (safety reasons – fair but certainly addressable) And the railroads. They move a lot of weight in boxcars and on flatbeds, raising allowed weight over 80,000 lbs means some freight would be able to go OTR instead. They spend a lot of $ on that issue.
Bonus explainer: If you ship inter-modal, it goes by truck to a railhead, the trailer gets on a train, and a truck picks it up at the other end to deliver the last mile(s).
Jay
@Ruckus:
Here we have a few tiny hills, pretty much everywhere.
When they set up the mobile truck safety inspections, about 35% fail, mostly for trailer brakes not properly adjusted. When I would drive from the hills down into town, I would quite often encounter a rig with it’s brakes and hubs glowing orange red from the descent down the Sahali Hill.
Funny thing is, there is a brake check at the top of the hill.
There are thousands of brake checks and runaway lanes through the Province. Textbook says that between Vancouver and Kamloops one should check and adjust their brakes 6 times, but nobody does it, because it takes time.
Recently we have had 4 highway overpasses taken out, 3 from dump trucks driving with their box upon the highway and slamming into the bridge, one from a flatbed hauling a payloader with the bucket up.
I don’t see AI helping with any of that.
Subsole
@Jay:
If there were any justice to be made, bought, borrowed, or stolen on this rock, the first positions the AI replaced would be the C-suite.
Subsole
@Brachiator:
They think so.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
Fascinating stuff. Also, I would think that the driverless system also has to take into account any vehicle to its rear.
gene108
@Jay:
Upper management to C-suite jobs could probably be replaced. So many stock trading decisions are fully automated now, there’s no reason an AI would look at numbers and decide growth potential, investment options, etc.
RepubAnon
@John Revolta: Here’s a gift link: Facing Bankruptcy After a $700 Million Bailout
Central Planning
@Baud: it’s capitalism all the way down
SFBayAreaGal
@raven: Saw them at a Day on the Green at the Okland Coliseum in 1975.
Ironcity
@narya: would it demonstrate the violence inherent in the system by repressing the
serfsdrivers?Brachiator
@Citizen Alan:
Very true.
Trump tried to focus not so much on multinational corporations, but on the simplistic lie that corporations were benign patriotic institutions, and that the evil Democrats had allowed China and other enemies to steal our manufacturing mojo, and that he would be the savior who would bring jobs back to the US “God bless America” of A.
It’s all bullshit that ignores real problems.
Narya
@Ironcity: hah! They’d have to oppress themselves, which of course is an option [waves at GOP]
@Ruckus: yeah, I don’t know enough to even speculate on a workable model; I just want to put the workers in charge somehow. Pipe dreams …
TriassicSands
Workers? Who the hell cares about workers? The real question is should we grind them into Soylent Green now or wait for them to starve to death and then do it.
Corporations in America have essentially one responsibility — their stock holders. If they can wreck the environment by making more money for their stockholders, then full speed ahead. There has to be a balance among workers and shareholders. And a little social responsibility would be nice, too. I won’t live to see that, not any of it.
Thank goodness for the Republican Party, they can turn this country into a third world kleptocracy that poisons the environment, impoverishes the people (except certain one), serves at the throne of the God of Bigotry and Ignorance.
Ella in New Mexico
As someone who has to drive reguarly on the overcrowded I -40/I-25 corridor I’m not at all in favor of self-driving 18 wheelers. Until we figure out a way to create a safe, dedicated central lane outside regular traffic, I at least want someone with some fucking skills behind the wheels of those monsters.
And I agree, shutting down a whole industry that pays a living wage to it’s workers is the LAST thing we need to do right now.
Mousebumples
Late to the thread, but I learned last week that my cousin at college in San Francisco is able to get free rides from a driverless Uber-like service (maybe Waymo?) as part of their testing process.
Freebies sound good to college kids, I’m sure. I’d be nervous… And lots of hills in SF.
Jay
wrong thread
raven
@SFBayAreaGal: They were sharing a space with Asleep at the Wheel in Oakland at the time!
Brachiator
@TriassicSands:
It is difficult for anyone or any entity to devise a workable balance. And you cannot blame corporations. The nature of innovation and technological change typically destroys some jobs and creates new ones. And there have been understandable reactions to this since the luddites.
I have worked for companies that didn’t exist before personal computers became ubiquitous and reasonably priced. Some of the antecedent companies were put out of business. In one case, instead of trying to protect either workers or shareholders directly, they missed opportunities to shift to new markets and failed everyone.
eclare
@Raven:
Ahhhh…I wondered about your comment about not posting about the Women’s World Cup in the morning thread. Now it makes sense! You might want to email WaterGirl about this, to post something about how people might be DVRing the games to watch at a reasonable hour so all WWC comments should be in this thread.
I feel like an idiot for not recognizing this. I blame it on being tired from watching soccer all night!
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus:
Of course we will continue to do so!
raven
@eclare: Nah, it doesn’t matter. It simply requires discipline on the part of the user. If you don’t want to know just stay off the site.
eclare
@raven:
True. But just to be safe for any others watching on delay, I will only comment on soccer in the soccer threads in the future. Thanks for the heads up.
Ixnay
@raven: massive. Classic. Serious rockabilly/Western swing. Excellent.
slightly_peeved
@Brachiator:
The reason for LIDAR is that, when it works, it gives you accurate and precise measurement of distance to things.
The reason Musk’s camera-based self-driving was doomed to fail is that AI/ML relies on accurate and pertinent data. You can’t algorithm your way out of a data set that doesn’t give you the information you need.
If they can’t get a LIDAR that works in weather conditions humans are expected to drive in, that’s a real, existential problem for self-driving.
Doug R
@Kelly: I worked at Purolator for 22 years, at around year 19, the company took a bloody minded turn, whipping us harder and harder. So I took the early retirement at 55 BUT I got the money now AND I took the cash out option because of the shenanigans Sears was pulling with their pensions.
Doug R
@Dangerman: One lane going 57, the other 80. Until one truck passes another and EVERYBODY slows to 54.
Another Scott
@TriassicSands: @Brachiator:
Dead thread, but…
I don’t know where this pernicious idea that “corporations only exist to enrich shareholders (mostly in the next quarter) and nothing else matters” came from, but it’s not true. I’m sure we oldsters remember IBM and GE and AT&T and all the giant corporations funding cultural stuff on PBS back in the olden times.
LOC.gov:
I guess the 1953 chairman of General Motors was “woke”. (groucho-roll-eyes.gif) (He had to divest his GM stock after this testimony before he was confirmed.)
Corporations are creatures of our society and have to exist under our laws. They’re given legal protections because they can benefit society, not because they’re all-or-nothing money machines for their owners.
My $0.02.
Grr…,
Scott.
Paul in KY
@trollhattan: And when 1 of them goes 1 mph below speed limit, the other AI trucks will pass (in a process that will take 1/2 an hour).
Good times a comin…
glc
It’s been a few days, but Brad Delong just picked this up in his substack (which is always interesting in one way or another).
https://braddelong.substack.com/p/briefly-noted-for-2023-07-25-tu