The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

© Iqoncept

Flexport’s Ryan Petersen has penned this rather brilliant post – honestly, are these guys actually trying to do us out of a job? Don’t you have some freight to book instead? – in TechCrunch recently on the future of a trucking industry dominated by autonomous vehicles. It doesn’t look good for drivers; it perhaps appears rosier for anyone concerned about the driver shortage crisis both in Europe and the US – there will be vast cost savings in salaries and diving costs, because driverless trucks can operate around-the-clock; are expected to be more fuel efficient; there will likely be less accidents; and it goes a long way to solving the driver shortage crisis. But this is a far more socially aware article than one might expect from someone so steeped in Silicon Valley mores – drivers make up 1% of the US workforce, and effectively annulling those jobs over the course of a few years could have a cataclysmic impact on large sections of the economy.