
Truckers Working Alongside Coders Trying to Make Driverless Trucks - sethbannon
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-06-22/these-truckers-work-alongside-the-coders-trying-to-eliminate-their-jobs
======
gwern
> But ultimately, Seltz-Axmacher believes, the tools he’s developing will be
> good for truckers. He cites a new book by Garry Kasparov, Deep Thinking, in
> which the chess great observes that middling chess players who play with the
> help of a standard computer are reliably better than either grandmasters or
> supercomputers by themselves. “I think humans and technology working
> together are always going to be better than either one alone,” Seltz-
> Axmacher says. “But maybe that’s just because I like humans.”

This is amusing because this stopped being true a long time ago. Even by 2007,
it was hard for anyone to improve, and after 2013 or so, the very best
centaurs were reduced to basically just opening book preparation (itself an
extremely difficult skill involving compiling millions of games and carefully
tuning against the weakness of possible opponent engines), to the point where
official matches have mostly stopped (making it hard to identify the exact
point at which centaur ceased to be a thing at all).

~~~
danielbarla
I've never really understood Kasparov's pro-biological opinion along those
lines. I suspect it's a combination of an observation that was true at that
time (that humans are better are intuition), and his own comment “But maybe
that’s just because I like humans”.

If you think about it, AIs have a significant advantage in that their
evolution is completely artificially guided. They can be focused on tasks in
isolation, and the results can be observed and improved upon. Biological
evolution does not have this luxury, overall the entire organism has to
"work", and survive long enough to reproduce. Sure, current technology is in
its infancy, but extrapolating into the far future, things are interesting.

~~~
gwern
I think it's a mix of outdated information, wishful thinking, and the
contrarian appeal. It _was_ true for a few years that a grandmaster or a
random chess player with good 'mechanical sympathy' could crush a solo chess
engine (which is why discussions of this tend to stop in 2007 despite being a
decade ago), it would be very convenient if AIs required humans for the best
performance ([https://github.com/JackToaster/Reassuring-Parable-
Generator/...](https://github.com/JackToaster/Reassuring-Parable-
Generator/tree/master) 'A computer will never play the best chess in the
world'), and it provides a meta-contrarian
([http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metaco...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metacontrarianism/))
take on AI risk/technological unemployment which is clearly Tyler Cowen's main
motivation in popularizing it (object: 'AIs will never be able to do X better
than humans as they have no soul'; contrarian: 'they totally will, just look';
meta-contrarian: 'ah, but the human element is still critical for a last bit
of performance due to the creativity and ingenuity of the human spirit!').

It's also interesting in that it demonstrates that there's at least two levels
of 'superhuman' performance in chess and other domains: there's superhuman in
being able to beat any living human one on one (Deep Blue, Sedol AlphaGo), and
superhuman in being unable to be improved upon by a human collaborator
(post-2013 chess engines; AlphaGo Master?). I'm not sure this gap was really
expected, but though it only lasts a few years (or months), it's still
interesting to note.

------
mc32
This looks like trucking's version of off-shoring.

You get paid to train your replacements. If you don't train them, someone else
will. It's a no win for them. They don't have pull or unions that commuter
train operators have so it's not like they'll get to ride along and supervise
the autonomous vehicle, in the long term. Instead, there may be an ops center
somewhere in TX where operators intervene remotely when an irregular operating
pattern pops up. Those will be fewer operators.

~~~
infecto
I am not a trucker but from what I understood from other truckers is that this
can be seen as a benefit to them. There is a lot more effort as a trucker in
managing the cargo than the driving. Lots of paperwork at pickup, drop off and
in between checks. There is effort to ensure the security of the cargo. I
think the expectation is that wages would stay the same and truckers stop
driving and start managing. Keep in mind wages are already fairly low.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
_Keep in mind wages are already fairly low_

In comparison to a computer programmer, yes. In comparison to the nationwide
average, no.
[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi5vMKdsdLUAhVo74MKHVVTDHAQFgguMAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.truckdriverssalary.com%2Fhow-
much-can-you-earn-your-1st-year-as-a-
trucker%2F&usg=AFQjCNHrhbzA9AlajalycKMf_eI2Jie2vw)

I can immediately think of one (retired) truck driver I know who comfortably
raised a family of 6 on a single salary.

~~~
boomboomsubban
You linked a site that makes money on convincing people to spend money getting
a CDL, not really a reliable source. Very few truckers are doing well, even
your source wages aren't that great for most positions when you add in the
other costs. And USA Today had a piece last week about one working unsafe
hours and making as little as $.67 a week.

[https://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/news/rigged-
forc...](https://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/news/rigged-forced-into-
debt-worked-past-exhaustion-left-with-nothing/)

------
thatwebdude
> Most people in Silicon Valley subscribe to either the first or second
> school. Much of the rest of the country, including many truckers, favor the
> third. "I can tell the difference between a dead porcupine and a dead
> raccoon, and I know I can hit a raccoon, but if I hit a porcupine, I’m going
> to lose all the tires on the truck on that side," says Tom George, a veteran
> driver who now trains other Teamsters for the union’s Washington-Idaho AGC
> Training Trust. "It will take a long time and a lot of software to program
> that competence into a computer."

Driverless trucks are a very interesting concept. Once they're on the freeway,
I would think most automation would work (relatively) well. But getting
through traffic congestions, busy multi-turn-lane intersections, and making
sure you don't sideswipe someone who's hugging the line seems rather complex
given the different trailer dimensions and blind spots, (un)marked lanes and
everything else it takes to _get_ to the highway.

~~~
ben_jones
Don't forget what happens when people find out they can abuse driverless
vehicles. Cutting them off, getting closer to them, slowing down in front of
them, etc. God knows what commuters will do to them in the Boston area.

~~~
wcummings
I live in (ok, ok, _near_ ) Boston and I constantly fantasize about this. I
don't commute by car I look forward to riding my bike 5mph in front of
driverless cars, at least if they don't run me over...

I also have to imagine they will be a ripe target for vandalism, especially if
operators don't aggressively remove graffiti.

~~~
wernercd
"ripe target for vandalism"

And they'll also be surrounded by camera's and hard drives. I would imagine
that the sensors that can see through fog could also get more detail than the
average CCV camera - meaning that even with a mask, you're going to get a lot
of detail on vandals or road hazards (aka: You going 5mph in front of one)

------
rfrank
> This is a company that employs truck drivers, is how the talk begins. The
> coders are sometimes taken aback—this differs from the usual change-the-
> world spiel deployed in hiring meetings. Truckers have very different ideas
> and different experiences from people like you, Seltz-Axmacher continues.
> Statistically speaking, many of them are Trump voters. They will say things
> that you may find startling. Not in a malicious way, but because people
> from, say, rural West Virginia talk differently than people from San
> Francisco. Can you handle that?

It's good to see someone doing more than just talk about this sort of thing;
both the employment aspect and the culture clash side of it. Compare that to
say, how Google treats its ex-military drone contractors [1].

1\. [http://www.businessinsider.com/ex-military-contractor-
google...](http://www.businessinsider.com/ex-military-contractor-google-x-
employee-collapsed-on-the-job-2017-3)

~~~
LeifCarrotson
And I love the counterpoint:

> _" We hire truckers,"_ Seltz-Axmacher tells prospective drivers right before
> offering them a job. _" But we also have a lot of engineers in Silicon
> Valley. Everything you’ve heard about San Francisco—it’s all basically true.
> There is something called raw denim, and in San Francisco people wear it,
> which means that some of your colleagues will pay up to $300 for a pair of
> blue jeans. They sometimes drink $7 lattes, too. Many of your co-workers
> will not be from the U.S. They will have accents. Can you handle that?"_

In my experience, the culture clash seems to me to be more common in
technology companies doing hardware projects than in hardware companies adding
software to their processes. As a member of the latter, I take exception to
this statement:

> _“We basically have people from two worlds, neither of which has ever talked
> to each other,”_ says Seltz-Axmacher, who grew up in suburban Maryland.
> _“That’s kind of what’s wrong with this country.”_

Perhaps that's true of the founder's life experience, or true of the trucking
industry, but most manufacturing jobs seem to be merging these cultures
comparatively smoothly. I've been at a couple companies in the automotive
industry, and been to hundreds of different plants, and everywhere you look
there are blue collar technicians running the machines and white collar
engineers building and automating the machines. The situation is not so bad as
the article paints it outside the extremes of Ivy League PHD programs
contrasted with the trucking industry.

~~~
logfromblammo
I'm a software pro, not a trucker, and _I_ have a problem with $300 jeans and
$7 lattes. And what is all this I keep hearing about $20 avocado toast?

The culture clash is Silicon Valley banging its own cymbals.

~~~
rfrank
The examples in the article are trite, but the culture clash is a very real
thing. I would point to things like the acceptance of alcohol in the
workplace, expectations around work/home balance, the comparatively uniform
social/political views of SF tech workers (and educational backgrounds), etc.

------
postnihilism
This is eerily like a scene from Player Piano, Vonnegut's first novel. Some
smart engineers find the best machinist at a factory, use some machines to
record his movements and process and then use them to program the robots that
replace him, and everyone else in his position at the factory.

For those that haven't read it, the book is an interesting and prescient story
about what the future of America looks like when nearly all human labor has
been made obsolete.

------
apapli
I know it is novel to talk about blue collar workers working alongside phd
grads who are specialists in this field... but surely any good system which
needs to deliver a quality outcome needs to be built with domain expertise, in
this case driving trucks. I just don't see why this is that exciting. I'd be
bloody worried if developers writing vehicle AI _weren 't_ doing this.

~~~
lhuser123
> I'd be bloody worried if developers writing vehicle AI weren't doing this

Me too. There's so much more than just driving. Just as an example, we truck
drivers learn to anticipate possible problems based on other people's
behaviors. Why anticipate? Because 80,000 lbs can take too long to stop, and
people can die.

------
randyrand
> Statistically speaking, many of them are Trump voters....Can you handle
> that?

I hope this is a joke. If someone literally cannot handle working alongside
someone who voted for Trump, that is so sad.

------
jimbobob
This is an interesting approach in the short term and could help bootstrap
Starsky's business before the conversion to fully autonomous driving.

I still think driving a truck as a profession will be a thing of the past
within 20 years or so. There's just too much money riding on this problem, and
logistics companies are fairly ruthless about efficiency.

~~~
zdean
"I still think driving a truck as a profession will be a thing of the past
within 20 years or so."

I hope so. Trucking is one of the toughest professions for a person to endure
that I've ever seen. It destroys a person's body and mind...and you're lucky
to end up making minimum wage when you account for how many hours they spend
working.

~~~
mc32
And what job alternatives will you provide them, think specially about current
long haul drivers, not future candidates you can discourage and divert to
greener fields.

~~~
eduren
Economic assistance. Give them the resources to choose their new career path
for themselves.

~~~
mc32
From whom, the govt? I don't trust that would happen (see rustbelt
industries). These automation startups? What's their profit if they have to
train the people they help get laid off/made redundant?

~~~
eduren
You asked a pretty important question (we agree that this isn't simple) and I
replied with what I thought to be the best solution.

And yes, the government. The funny thing about a democracy is that if enough
people want the govt. to provide something, it will.

------
bluedino
If I was a trucker I'd be learning diesel tech, not training my replacement
drivers

~~~
lhuser123
I'm actually learning to code. I drive over-the-road and live in the truck
cab. Hopefully someday it will help me get out of here.

~~~
bluedino
You know I read an article a long time ago about two guys who drove truck and
took turns coding (team drivers so the person not driving would write code)
and wrote shareware this way - it might have been a game published by Epic or
Apogee in the early 90's or I might be imagining the whole thing

~~~
lhuser123
That's a good idea. For now I'm solo, so there's not really much time.

------
dsfyu404ed
As much as the devs probably hate riding with truckers it's good for them

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Why do you think they'd hate it?

~~~
cakedoggie
I would hate it.

~~~
randyrand
Why would you hate it?

------
dsfyu404ed
Don't hold your breath for semi-driverless trucking. Automated systems to aid
in backing of doubles and triples isn't even a common thing yet.

