[pcurve]

The article interchangeably uses "self-driving car" and "autonomous car", but it doesn't clarify whether the benefit calculations include completely unmanned usage.

A car that drives by itself with passengers in it, is one thing. But an unmanned vehicle takes the concept to a whole new level.

It will have an incredibly deflationary effect on the economy. Trucking is a $600 billion business. It employs 3 million people. Over a million of them are long-haul truckers. And that's not counting non-driving support staff. With self-driving trucks, 30% reduction in headcount isn't unrealistic.

That's just one example.

It's a scary prospect for many people.

[pdkl95]

This is yet another example of how we are /very/ rapidly plunging (like it or not) into a future where our amazing advances in technology make most of what we consider "work" obsolete and unnecessary. In a sense, we (as a species) kind of won that "life" game.

Right now a large percentage of society is doing "work" that isn't particularly complicated or difficult. I's necessary, of course, but it's the kind of thing that we are - with increasing frequency - starting to think we really should take the very small shell script[1] option.

Many obvious references could be made to Marx at this point, of course. If you want to. I prefer, on the other hand, the idea that our economy is simply taking on some Star Trek-style, post-scarcity traits.

Technology can never replace /all/ jobs, of course. More precisely, Gödel showed us there's always more complicated, more interesting tasks out there. The tasked involved in maintaining the baseline needs a person has in life (food; shelter, basic health-care) and even a few of the "luxuries" (transportation, communication, the general-purpose computer), though, are going to simply be solved problems.

Autonomous cards are indeed going to be a very scary prospect, and it isn't (primarily) because of any safety concern. The changes to society this technology will cause (such as those 3M truck drivers) is pure, distilled terror for anybody that wants to hold on to current social model.

Worse yet - the self-driving car is just the first of many technologies that are happening right now. Millions of unemployed drivers is nothing compared to /billions/ of bureaucrats, low-level factory workers, fast-food/walmart-type workers, and middlemen of all sorts and the like being made obsolete.

Hmm... what was it that Marx said about revolution?

We better stat getting ready for these changes in the meantime. "The avalanche has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote."[2]

[1] http://www.nerdyshirts.com/shell-script-funny-t-shirt No store endorsement (good or bad) intended; the link was an arbitrary google pick for that t-shirt.

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60loeoblu0M

edit: link formating

[patrickk]

It would be a massive boon to companies like Amazon, as the cost of anything delivered by road would decrease dramatically.

Actually, everything would drop in price, including your basic weekly groceries.