{"id":48,"date":"2007-06-27T04:36:42","date_gmt":"2007-06-27T12:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevenrbrandt.com\/wordpress\/?p=48"},"modified":"2007-06-27T04:36:42","modified_gmt":"2007-06-27T12:36:42","slug":"junior-the-self-driving-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevenrbrandt.com\/?p=48","title":{"rendered":"‘Junior’ the Self-Driving Car"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stanford’s entry into the Darpa Urban Challenge<\/a> is a car named “Junior”<\/a>. It is capable of reading road signs, reflective markers on the road, and avoiding other cars. This suggests to me that we are on-track for self-driving cars in 10 years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Let me elaborate on a point I made in a previous post: A self-driving car is not just a cool gadget. The implications are far-reaching and scary. It doesn’t just mean that driving is safer, or that designated drivers become a thing of the past. It means that a whole new class of jobs can be replaced by automation: taxis, busses, and trucks.<\/p>\n

In the past, loss of jobs to automation has always resulted in new classes of jobs that kept the work force humming. I believe that this worked out, in part, because only mundane and repetitive tasks could be eliminated by automation. With the self-driving car we may be entering into an era where nearly any job that does not require a fairly significant amount of creativity or intelligence will be subject to replacement. We are talking about the possible whole-scale elimination of the blue collar and service worker jobs. Even construction jobs could start disappearing soon<\/a>. Here is another example: migrant fruit pickers will soon be replaced.<\/a><\/p>\n

What is the answer? A new breed of socialism where the unemployable (the majority of the population) receive a free minimum wage and only the elite have paying jobs? Certainly a technologically advanced society such as this will be able to afford to have a non-working populace. Or will the change to society be something even more sinister?<\/p>\n

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