autonomous

What effect will autonomous vehicles have on humans and jobs

COMMENT

Autonomous vehicles covers very large sectors particularly in respect to human employment.

Most people's real understanding of the AI revolution will only begin to hit when cars become available. I for one look forward to just telling my car where to go and alert me when I get to my destination and arriving there safely and stress free. Some think this is still fantasy, but the technology already exists, The real issue apart from a 10 fold increase in safety and reductions in deaths on the road is becoming the realisation that AI and in the case of driving is just Narrow AI effect will be on jobs.

The easy case to understand is that of Taxi drivers and this will happen very shortly, there are also being tests on long distance lorries admittedly for now it will be with drivers on board and required to take over control when not on motorways, but the acceleration of general AI will surprisingly quickly lead to even this requirement of human drivers, when this does start to happen it will happen Very quickly, as soon as one company reduces its overheads other will follow or go bust within months not years.

But it will then be too late for many of us as it will have happened then and it is not just Taxi and Lorry drivers but any other technology, the list is massive and will particularly hurt the working class and also even more so the middle class as their jobs will have also falling to AI and AGI.

In the UK the government has said by 2020 there will be millions of more jobs, this just not stack up with what is coming, most likely millions of people never having a job again.

The list of jobs at risk is growing almost daily, we will not have 10 years to sort this it is looming fast and needs addressing now if we are to be prepared for it.

Some say new jobs have always come in the past, like the move from high employment in agriculture and working the land, although none of us know the future there is very little on the horizon and that is before the rise of the robots.