Understanding the Impact of Robots on Employment — Part 4

By Siddharth Singh, 22nd July 2015

This write-up on self-driven trucks on Medium is worth a read. The title is appropriately, ‘Self-Driving Trucks Are Going to Hit Us Like a Human-Driven Truck’. Because let’s face it: truck driving is the most common job in 29 of 50 states in the United States, and indeed in several regions of the world. In the United States alone, there are 3.5 million truck drivers.

Companies have every incentive to adopt self-driving trucks — one prototype which is already on US roads — because they are potentially safer (therefore have lower insurance premiums), don’t need to be paid a salary and don’t need health insurance and other benefits. Needless to say, of course, these trucks will initially be costlier by that much, and then some. But as competition and scale increases, they will get cheaper, and will consume middle class jobs.

The article cites various studies that claim that fully automated vehicles will dominate new vehicle sales in the next two decades. The impact of self-driving vehicles on employment and the economy at large will be seen in the next few decades.

Elsewhere, Vivek Wadhwa, a fellow at Stanford University, warns:

“With the technology advances that are presently on the horizon, not only low-skilled jobs are at risk; so are the jobs of knowledge workers. Too much is happening too fast. It will shake up entire industries and eliminate professions. Some new jobs will surely be created, but they will be few. And we won’t be able to retrain the people who lose their jobs, because, as I said to Andreessen (a tech mogul), you can train an Andreessen to drive a cab, but you can’t retrain a laid-off cab driver to become an Andreessen. The jobs that will be created will require very specialized skills and higher levels of education — which most people don’t have.”

He discusses policy responses to such disruptions, which will lead to a situation where there is not enough work to employ the masses. These policy responses include, 1. three-day work weeks, 2. a universal basic income, 3. a universal basic income tied to education qualifications, skill and participation, 4. rebuilding cities, which will generate jobs, and 5. a far-fetched, utopian software which links people to tasks globally.

PS. Click on the links for parts 1, 2 and 3 of this series (and the prequel).