Driverless trucks

[Frazod]

Originally Posted by Zebedee DuBois

I'm just guessing here, but it seems to me that the 'over the road' part of driverless trucks would be the easiest part to tackle - but the delivery - backing into a dock after negotiating the parking lot seems like the hard part. A lot of delivery points can be a tricky, requiring a skilled driver to get into. I can imagine a robot truck locking up in some situations.

There's an industrial park near my house that gets a ton of semi traffic. Several of the businesses, however, simply don't have adequate room for the trucks to easily back in to the docks, which results in them going through slow, painful street blocking maneuvering gymnastics. Maybe a driverless truck would be better at it, but somehow I doubt it.

And I simply have a problem with enormous Skynet trucks driving all over the place. As if dealing with these goddamn things in traffic isn't bad enough already.

But I guess it's something I probably won't have to worry about it. By the time this shit gets to be commonplace, I'll likely have shuffled off this mortal coil.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by Frazod

There's an industrial park near my house that gets a ton of semi traffic. Several of the businesses, however, simply don't have adequate room for the trucks to easily back in to the docks, which results in them going through slow, painful street blocking maneuvering gymnastics. Maybe a driverless truck would be better at it, but somehow I doubt it.

And I simply have a problem with enormous Skynet trucks driving all over the place. As if dealing with these goddamn things in traffic isn't bad enough already.

But I guess it's something I probably won't have to worry about it. By the time this shit gets to be commonplace, I'll likely have shuffled off this mortal coil.

I run Guidance on my tractors and one thing i can assure you is the technology can outperform an operator.

I can run tractor. And that thing can kick my ass.

[seamonster]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

I run Guidance on my tractors and one thing i can assure you is the technology can outperform an operator.

I can run tractor. And that thing can kick my ass.

Different use case. Shipping is about transporting at "best price" and keeping just-in-time inventories stocked, not operating recursive predictable farming work (in technology farming is just old hat). Sure you can cut costs by removing all humans but how much can that scale when you're dealing with interstate traffic? I don't think it would. I'd bet that there's always going to be truckers. Fuzzy logic and ML alone isn't something I'd put behind the wheel of an eighteen wheeler on I-70.

I'd predict that this is going to play out like old cattle trains. They're going to have fleets and arrays of these driverless trucks (6,8,18,32) and they're going to slip in a human "driver" to manage and herd these things through the road ways. That would make the insurance companies happy and there's always somebody to scream at and hold liable. You'll probably have a human driver up front looking for road "clutter" (shit that wouldn't be understood by the computer vision) and a guy amongst the pack wrangling the fleet and keeping an eye on alarm rates and relief teams. If they wanted too they could scale this up to some wild numbers and get product flowing without putting the public at risk of getting MaximumOverdrived. Would ruin many a truckers life but I think we're too the point where this is going to become a reality.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by seamonster

Different use case. Shipping is about transporting at "best price" and keeping just-in-time inventories stocked, not operating recursive predictable farming work (in technology farming is just old hat). Sure you can cut costs by removing all humans but how much can that scale when you're dealing with interstate traffic? I don't think it would. I'd bet that there's always going to be truckers. Fuzzy logic and ML alone isn't something I'd put behind the wheel of an eighteen wheeler on I-70.

I'd predict that this is going to play out like old cattle trains. They're going to have fleets and arrays of these driverless trucks (6,8,18,32) and they're going to slip in a human "driver" to manage and herd these things through the road ways. That would make the insurance companies happy and there's always somebody to scream at and hold liable. You'll probably have a human driver up front looking for road "clutter" (shit that wouldn't be understood by the computer vision) and a guy amongst the pack wrangling the fleet and keeping an eye on alarm rates and relief teams. If they wanted too they could scale this up to some wild numbers and get product flowing without putting the public at risk of getting MaximumOverdrived. Would ruin many a truckers life but I think we're too the point where this is going to become a reality.

My response was specific to Frazods assertion that tight spaces would be tough for automation. Precision of machines is far better than us. I know some of these damn truckers are incredible, but machines are better.

I'd agree with the rest. Lawyers need someone to blame.

Let me be clear - I'm all in favor of turning this shit over to the machines. All of it. My personal driving included. But I don't think the lawyers will let it happen.

Interestingly, Deere's approach to automation (they have a fully automated option for like 2 different tillage implements) is fully image related. So cameras, and then interpreting visual data. That's not what I'd have done, but that's what they're doing.

[Frazod]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

I run Guidance on my tractors and one thing i can assure you is the technology can outperform an operator.

I can run tractor. And that thing can kick my ass.

Fair enough. But my Skynet comment still stands.