Apart from doing away with the need for drivers of taxis, Uber and other car services, no longer needed will be truck drivers, postal carriers who drive (at this point we don't need mail service anyway) and all others who drive for a living. But plans underway for the autonomous age to come include robots do the jobs associated with driving jobs, such as package deliveries by drones, and now having robots pick up the trash. I forgot to add drivers of tow trucks, who also extract vehicles from messy situations, something that a multinational team of researchers has figured out how to automate to the point that humans are not needed.
And yes, we will be getting rid of friendly garbage men. A Canadian company is working on the segment of the vehicle market for tow trucks and dump trucks. As the article declares, the company is willing to automate anything on wheels.
It seems that once we have the technology to go driverless, which I fully support, we will also be on a fast trajectory to the complete loss of entry-level and low-wage jobs, which I have some discomfort with. Getting totally self-centered here, but how long will it be until our human brains are completely surpassed? We already lose at chess and legal research databases long ago did away with the need for an army of temps and law students to read through thousands of pages of materials. (I was once one of those.)
In other driverless news
On the international front, Switzerland is entering the driverless sweepstakes, conservative country that it is, after waiting to see autonomous driving technology would actually happen. What can you say about a country with streets cleaner than my living room and absolutely no litter? Really makes one want to throw a gun wrapper right on the ground. The country has paved the way for testing driverless vehicles. (This news via @DriverlessTrans on Twitter.)
No comments:
Post a Comment