The robots that ate Pittsburgh

[Barry-xlovecam]

Colby Cosh: The robots that ate Pittsburgh | National Post

Interesting opinion piece from a Canadian newspaper

The more you read about self-driving cars, the more your head spins over effects like this. Mayor Peduto says he envisions self-driving as a ?last-mile and first-mile? technology connecting car-less citizens with public transit. It sounds like, for all his techno-Utopian bravado, he is being careful not to set off the bus drivers? union. City buses are surely among the settings in which it is easiest to imagine self-driving tech being implemented. The Uber robo-cabs in Pittsburgh will be chaperoned by human monitors at first to guarantee safety, and that may be the future of the human city-bus driver. Instead of trained operators for buses, we will have flight attendant types to assist disabled users and provide security.

I never thought of urban transportation lifestyle and occupation changing this way ...

If your question is, ?Why hasn?t the insurance industry started preparing for this?? you should check Bloomberg News, which reported Sunday that big insurers agree: personal auto insurance is, as a major revenue source, on the road to extinction. An analyst for Aon plc said he expected a drop in its American business of 20 per cent by 2035; another spokesman for the Munich Re group said the same thing, but gave figures of 25 per cent and 2030. These seem like polite conservative estimates from a business predicated on caution. Aon?s man says he anticipates ?mov(ing) the business mix to fleet products and commercial lines,? but how sure are we that self-driving cars won?t disrupt commercial transport sooner rather than later?

10's of thousands of jobs in auto insurance may change or be eliminated also. The trickle down is the insurance lead internet business and the call centers in India that end up with those leads.

[woj]

Why does everyone frame this in a negative light? these insurance industry jobs were crap anyway, completely unrewarding, borderline pointless too, we should be cheering on that they are getting eliminated...

people working these jobs will now move to productive and rewarding endeavors...

[stickyfingerz]

People resisting autonomous vehicles are wasting their time. This is inevitable folks. And will save countless lives.

[2MuchMark]

Originally Posted by stickyfingerz

People resisting autonomous vehicles are wasting their time. This is inevitable folks. And will save countless lives.

[notinmybackyard]

Originally Posted by stickyfingerz

People resisting autonomous vehicles are wasting their time. This is inevitable folks. And will save countless lives.

Taxi drivers, bus drivers, uber drivers, call center employees, motor vechicle mechanics, licensing bureau employees, gas station attendants, etc.. etc.. etc..

When all the above people lose their jobs and some arrogant snot nose computer geeks start talking smack like "adapt or die" or lectures them about "learning to write code" then I'm sure we're going to see some really great reality TV.

Personally I hope I live long enough to witness the problems because there hasn't been anything good on TV since the 70s.

[kane]

I read an article the other day that said there is an estimate that automation, robots and AI will replace 5-7% of all jobs worldwide in the next 5 years.

If I were in a job that could be replaced by a robot I would start learning something new ASAP.