Meet a dead man walking.
I’m a long-haul trucker, and I’m going to be replaced by a computer. It will happen soon. I’m figuring five years or less for trucks. Cars will take a little longer. This big push for driverless vehicles is more about getting rid of truck drivers than Uber drivers. The only humans left in the modern supply chain are truckers. Trucks are loaded and unloaded into and out of warehouses by barcode machines. Eliminating drivers completes the loop.
Driverless trucks won’t need health insurance, vacations or pay. They also won’t need dispatchers, compliance departments or human-resource managers.
I’m resistant to automation because it’s not what I’m used to, it’s not what I want and the future looks blurry.
Some of the press I’ve read about automating trucks has to do with moral choice, like what does the machine do when faced with damaging property versus a person? There are still technological issues — what happens when the machine gets hacked? — but those will be solved.
I have to admit, the machine will probably be safer when put against the 35,000 annual traffic fatalities we’ve grown so accustomed to with human drivers. But also, that’s 2 million low-skill jobs lost.
I’m resistant to automation because it’s not what I’m used to, it’s not what I want and the future looks blurry.
Driving our own vehicle is lodged in American cultural bedrock. To paraphrase author Cotton Seiler from the book “Republic of Drivers”: ‘The belief in self-directed motion as an agent of liberation is powerful and venerable in American culture.” That says it all. Besides, I’m not really ready for another reshaping of our entire cultural fabric. Computers and smartphones were enough upheaval for one lifetime.
I’m trying to work through this intellectually, not emotionally, so I’m taking a step back to calmly think about other cultural norms that were typical in the past but unthinkable today.
Here are two examples. The first is from the 19th century. From our current perch, we find it inconceivable that an educated Southern planter endorsed slavery. If we conjured up one of these people, he’d likely say that it was what he grew up with and it was supported by church, family and the entire social fabric. It would have taken a person of very advanced imagination to break free of the status quo and visualize a different future back then.
My second point is from my own direct experience. In my high school in the 1970s, seniors who had a certain grade point average were allowed to smoke cigarettes on school premises. This was considered a privilege. When I tell millennials that smoking in school was a reward, they are incredulous. In both cases, contemporary folks simply cannot believe that society viewed these practices as civilized.
I believe that it won’t be long before people will look at human drivers in the same way. “Your generation was completely comfortable with 35,000 road deaths each year? It was a bloodbath out there and you let it happen. You folks were barbarians! Now we have only 300 deaths a year because of automated vehicles. What were you all thinking?”
Independent driving will be viewed as errant irresponsibility, like a pregnant woman smoking. There will be fewer deaths — and no truck drivers. How are the supplanted truckers going to make a living?
America has fallen short in providing alternatives for displaced workers.
I’m no Luddite. I don’t think we should slow down technology to keep jobs. On the other hand, there are millions of working people caught in this spiral of job elimination leading to ever lower paying work. We can’t all work at Walmart.
I live in Colorado, and the hills are strewn with abandoned mines that spew toxic chemicals into the rivers and streams. I used to live in Bridgeport, Conn., where the rotting carcasses of abandoned factories lie everywhere. When truckers go the way of these ghosts, once again, downsized workers will be tossed to the government to deal with (and while transportation companies reap enormous benefits). Have the companies embracing technological change no responsibility for the human and physical mess they leave behind? Apparently not.
Even The Economist, no foe of innovation, admits that America has fallen short in providing alternatives for displaced workers. I’ve been a trucker since 1980. What am I supposed to do? Get retrained in computer programming? I’m almost 60 years old. Not likely.
Something needs to change. I’m a solid American, and I believe in work. I also believe in cleaning up after myself. That makes me a responsible citizen. It’s long past time for the private sector to become one, too.