Fairly recently, Bernie Sanders complained in The Guardian about the risk that AI will destroy various jobs, including truck driver jobs.

Am I alone in thinking that truck driving is an arduous job that ideally shouldn't be done by humans at all?

* long hours and days spent in loneliness, away from family and friends,

* possibility to stretch and move your body is very limited,

* bad hyper-processed food, hence so many drivers are obese,

* the need of humans to sleep and relax means that the trucks cannot legally move for majority of the day, thus there is a need to have more of them,

* plus, as mentioned here, both the drivers and their managers are incentivized to break and bend the law, resulting in unsafe driving.

All of the above would be mitigated by robots taking the wheel.

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maratc 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Ideally you would also think about what the truck drivers would do in this new reality where they aren't just unemployed but rather unemployable.

Truck driver is the most numerous blue-collar profession in the US, if I remember correctly it counts several million people. I wouldn't expect all of them to become automotive AI model trainers overnight.

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Simulacra 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I agree completely, and I think it's only a matter of time until the short haul is completely autonomous. The trucking industry is slowly working themselves out of a job, and it's not just deplorable working conditions, or terrible pay, outright fraudulent schools, or the predatory trucking companies, it's also the rising cost and antipathy towards the very, very very critical role that truckers play in modern society.

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lo_zamoyski 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Ideally, long-haul freight transportation would be handled by trains and trucks would only be used for last mile deliveries. Ideally.

	▲	inglor_cz 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		This is a bit complicated even in Czechia, with its densest network of railways in the world. Trains are most efficient when they are long. 30+ cars, ideally. Capacity of railway lines is limited and lines tend to be shared by passenger traffic as well, so freight mostly moves at night and short freight trains are economically unviable. It might take a long time to gather enough stuff/containers to fill 30 freight cars in one particular railway head (obvious exceptions such as Port of Rotterdam apply). Which means that you may have to wait for 10 days before your shipment actually starts to move. We aren't that patient anymore.

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hexbin010 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Most of that does not have to be that way. Relentless capitalism and profit maximisation resulted in that.

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salawat 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>long hours and days spent in loneliness, away from family and friends

Calling bullshit here. If they weren't doing that work, they probably would not, in fact, get extra time with family/friends.

>the need of humans to sleep and relax means that the trucks cannot legally move for majority of the day, thus there is a need to have more of them,

Team drives can cover a majority of the day if need be for long hauling. Short hauling/last mile is capped not so much by miles traveled, but cargo load and unload times.

Folks, get over robotically doing these things.

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inglor_cz 3 hours ago | parent [-]

N == 1, but I used to live in a block of flats with three truck driver families. All three marriages collapsed over their fathers' frequent absence from home.

You can say that they would have collapsed over something else if they stayed at home, but this is what the people themselves told me.

Driving to Spain and back takes two weeks. After two weeks of his absence "I felt like a young widow already", said Hana, the youngest of the wives.

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HappyPanacea 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> Driving to Spain and back takes two weeks.

From Czechia (based on your name)? Why so long?

	▲	inglor_cz 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		* Trucks are slower than personal cars. * Pauses are required. * Some roads cannot be used by some vehicles and/or cargo, especially in the Alps. Same with tunnels. * Some countries ban trucks from their roads on certain days and hours, so a day off whether you want it or no. * Sometimes your employer tells you to avoid some extra expensive road even at the cost of longer driving time. (Europe has a myriad of toll systems.) * The cargo for the return journey is usually not ready on the same day, might well take five.