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Comment by thisone | Hacker News Reader

What point was he trying to make?

I would expect that anyone who's worked on enterprise software has been to client meetings where ROI is expressed in terms of human resources.

It's part of advancement that certain jobs will no longer be viable for people. People will train for other work instead.

It's not like suddenly, with no warning, 100s of thousands of drivers around the world will need to find new jobs. But in the very long term, fewer drivers will be needed. People who would have, at one time, become drivers, will do other work.

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Most people who are taking classes from a professor haven't built enterprise software or been in client meetings. Most of them don't realize that their work while it probably makes life better for young rich white yuppies like them may destroy a way of life for huge swaths of other people for better or for worse. And generally college students haven't been trained to be cold or callous enough to express ROI in terms of human resources quite yet -- I'm sure the slide was gentle preparation for what is to come once they enter the capitalist workforce.

Heh, for auto-driving trucks it very likely will mean suddenly 10's of thousands out of work.

And folks out of work are finding it harder and harder to find word. Automation's ultimate goal is putting us all out of work. We're in a transition, and admitting that will help guide policy from here on.

> It's not like suddenly, with no warning, 100s of thousands of drivers around the world will need to find new jobs.

Isn't that exactly the case? (Except that are tens of millions.)

Why not, are those people warned?

Its not the case because its unlikely that the technology will be adopted everywhere, simultaneously, overnight; it will be adopted gradually over time; it'll probably first manifest in the job market as a decline in growth in trucking jobs, then a decline in trucking jobs, rather than going from the existing pattern one day to no humans working as truckers the next.

Well, define "gradually".

I certainly won't be overnight. But you are assuming current truck drivers will have time to migrate to new jobs as those appear - I really doubt two decades is "gradual" by that measure. Yet, I can not see how it could take that long.

> But you are assuming current truck drivers will have time to migrate to new jobs as those appear

No, and I'm not even assuming that new jobs will appear.

That there will be warning and that there will be much that can be done with the warning are very different ideas; OTOH...

> I really doubt two decades is "gradual" by that measure.

Two decades is enough time for people who are mid- (and often even early, though not quite at the beginning) of a career to retire and not need to worry about a new job, so its potentially gradual enough.

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