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Transportation

UPS Has Been Delivering Cargo in Self-Driving Trucks for Months And No One Knew (gizmodo.com) 102

The self-driving freight truck startup TuSimple has been carrying mail across the state of Arizona for several weeks. From a report: UPS announced on Thursday that its venture capital arm has made a minority investment in TuSimple. The announcement also revealed that since May TuSimple autonomous trucks have been hauling UPS loads on a 115-mile route between Phoenix and Tucson. UPS confirmed to Gizmodo this is the first time UPS has announced it has been using TuSimple autonomous trucks to deliver packages in the state. Around the same time as the UPS and TuSimple program began, the United States Postal Service and TuSimple publicized a two-week pilot program to deliver mail between Phoenix and Dallas, a 1,000 mile trip. TuSimple claims it can cut the average cost of shipping in a tractor-trailer by 30 percent. In an announcement about the new partnership, UPS Ventures managing partner, Todd Lewis, said the venture arm "collaborates with startups to explore new technologies and tailor them to help meet our specific needs."
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UPS Has Been Delivering Cargo in Self-Driving Trucks for Months And No One Knew

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  • With Safety driver! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Friday August 16, 2019 @12:31PM (#59094394)

    With Safety driver!

    • by ghoul ( 157158 )

      Today the most common job for a male in the united states is Driver. For a female it is checkout clerk.

      With Autonomous cars and camera based checkout at Amazon stores I guess the most common jobs will now be safety driver and ??? (What are the women going to do?)

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by guruevi ( 827432 )

        And 200 years ago the most common job was peasant and peasant's wife respectively.

        • by ghoul ( 157158 )

          Sometimes we forget how newly developed the US really is. Most people's grandparents were farmers. People in Europe and Asia have been living in cities forever. I dont think I have a farmer in my ancestry in the last 500 years. Well technically being a feudal lord does mean you are a farmer , its just that others do the farming while you enjoy the rents.

          It really plays into US culture. US culture is a lot more open and trusting than Asian or European culture. Even in big cities people still behave like they

          • Peasant and Peasant's Wife still perfectly describe the modern new terms: Driver and Check Out Clerk.

            The new names are simply more specific than the generalized older terminology.
          • Most people's grandparents were farmers.

            Points at self. Yeppers, my father's parents were farmers. Mother's parents were townies, though.

            I dont think I have a farmer in my ancestry in the last 500 years.

            No doubt. But it should be remembered that 200 years ago, 50%+ of Europeans were also farmers. France didn't drop below about 50% farmers till about the time my grandfather was born (he was too young for WW1, but only because it ended the year before he would've been drafted)...

            • The difference between Americans and Europeans is that American farmers often decided to do something different and make history, whereas in Europe, farmers generally remained farmers. And many of the European farmers who wanted to do something different and make history, uprooted themselves and made history as Americans.

              My paternal grandfather was born in Greece. My paternal grandmother was born in Ireland. My father was born in Ohio.

          • by Kjella ( 173770 )

            People in Europe and Asia have been living in cities forever. I dont think I have a farmer in my ancestry in the last 500 years.

            Maybe one direct line of ascendants because trades were largely inherited, the son of the priest became the new priest and the son of the smith the new smith. But nobody from a farm marrying into your family in the last 20 generations? It would be a not so minor miracle, unless you're nobility or something like that and even then some of those were probably farmers a few generations before they married into yours. As for the rest, I have no idea where you get it from. The US is choking full of racial tensio

            • the son of the priest became the new priest

              Not in Catholic countries.

              • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

                I bet all those babies abandoned on the steps of convents had a better than average chance of growing up to be priests (and nuns).

            • by dryeo ( 100693 )

              Reading about the peasants revolt in 14th century London, one of their main targets (actually the townspeoples) was the Flemish immigrants, who IIRC, were competing weavers. Further back it was the Jews.
              One other difference in medieval Europe was people from just a few score of miles away were foreigners with their own dialect and customs.

          • by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

            Sometimes we forget how newly developed the US really is. Most people's grandparents were farmers..

            The median age in the USA is what, 40 to 50? Most people's grandparents were not farmers in the USA. In the 1920 census 51% of people lived in urban areas in the USA. Of the 49% living outside cities only a proportion were farmers, for about 30% of the population. The other issue is that many in the USA now have grandparents that were not born there and were from Europe and didn't work on farms. If you said 'Most people whose grandparents were all born in the USA to parents also born in the USA have at leas

        • A peasant's wife was also a peasant. At least in Pedant World.

          • Except we're in a world where the GP considers safety driver a male job and asks what women will do. We're not in a pedant world, we're in a sexist world.

      • by tsqr ( 808554 )

        Today the most common job for a male in the united states is Driver. For a female it is checkout clerk.

        If you're going to make this sort of claim, you really ought to cite your source. From here [infoplease.com], it looks like the most common job for a female in the US these days is Secretary/Administrative Assistant. It's harder to find information on jobs for men, apparently because they're not an oppressed minority and therefore uninteresting; however, the most "popular" (by numbers) job without respect to gender is "retail sales/sales clerk".

        • by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

          It's harder to find information on jobs for men, apparently because they're not an oppressed minority and therefore uninteresting

          The BLS very much records those statistics and they are just as available as those for women.

          • by tsqr ( 808554 )

            It's harder to find information on jobs for men, apparently because they're not an oppressed minority and therefore uninteresting

            The BLS very much records those statistics and they are just as available as those for women.

            I did go to the BLS website, but couldn't find the info. Perhaps you could provide a citation?

    • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday August 16, 2019 @12:53PM (#59094466)
      because the only thing they need to do is slam on breaks at the right moment and get the truck off the road if it starts to break down.

      And that's for what, maybe 10, 20 years before even the Safety driver goes by-by? Truck driving is a shit job, but it was a middle class shit job. We're about to lose 3 million middle class jobs and there's nothing on the horizon to replace them except "Learn to Code"....

      And no, the service economy isn't gonna work. If nobody has money for services then there's no service economy.
      • by steveha ( 103154 ) on Friday August 16, 2019 @01:47PM (#59094648) Homepage

        Truck driving is a shit job, but it was a middle class shit job. We're about to lose 3 million middle class jobs

        This is true, but it's going to happen and nobody can stop it.

        And Jack Rickard says that truck driving is a worse job than people realize, and we shouldn't mourn its loss when self-driving trucks take over:

        [Y]ou can make a VERY good living as a truck driver. If you are not habitually drunk and can see out of one eye, you start at about $50k per year and if you aren't also brain dead you can do $100k per year within a year or so.

        So why isn't EVERYONE a truck driver? Well it's a hard life. It's an easy job to begin with. But living on the road day and night for weeks months or years at a time just isn't a life.

        A friend of mine had two wayward sons who discovered this in short order. They stumbled on truck driving to make money and it went SO well they quit their truck driving job and invested in their own brand new shiny tractor and tried their hand. That went well enough they bought a SECOND and then a THIRD.

        They were just raking it in but had a very difficult time hiring a third driver that wasn't just a horror. And so they scaled back to two trucks and the two of them. Again, they were making it work big time.

        Two years later their trucks are for sale and they've taken jobs doing a milk run between Cape Girardeau and St. Louis that has them home for dinner every evening.

        About two years of hard truck driving drives home the lesson that money isn't everything. Very few can stick with it. It's a hard life and rather a mean life as well.

        http://evtv.me/2018/08/teslatime-news/ [evtv.me]

        • by dryeo ( 100693 )

          Yes, my Brother-in-law is a truck driver, used to be gone for weeks, bought his own truck, then the economy crashed and he had to sell it. Maintaining a rig is expensive. Now he has settled down as a dump truck driver in the big city, which still pays fairly well.
          There's a job that it is going to be hard to automate as you have to bend and break the rules of the road all the time.

        • but we need to do something with all these people. They're well armed, poorly educated and they'd make great foot soldiers in a Gestapo. And there's 3 million of them. It's not a good idea to abandon large swaths of your population to abject poverty. Best case scenario it ends in another World War. Worst case this time the baddies win.
      • We're about to lose 3 million middle class jobs and there's nothing on the horizon to replace them

        150 years ago, we were 80% farmers. And when machines started to replace farm jobs, "there was nothing on the horizon to replace them". And yet, we don't have 80% unemployment...how can this be?!?

        • plus the poverty, war and social strife that went with it. Before we turned it into an insult Luddite referred to a movement started in response to job losses.

          Also, I'm open to hearing what those 3 million truck drivers will do for a living. Here are the answers I will not accept:

          1. Biotech. These are the jobs I was promised when the H1-Bs took my tech jobs in the 90s, and everyone on this forum knows exactly how well that turned out.

          2. Service Sector. When nobody's got jobs nobody's got money for
          • If SDV leads to an increase in total miles driven then that should lead to an increased demand for automotive mechanics. That will probably cover about 1-3% of the driver jobs lost due to SDV.

          • I'm open to hearing what those 3 million truck drivers will do for a living.

            How many professions exist? That's a whole list of possibilities, right there. And it's even more when we add the 5 answers that you won't accept. Whether you accept those answers or not, at least some of these people are going to do those jobs anyway.

          • 6) standing around leaning on shovels.

          • It's a hard problem indeed. But I just can't accept "everything is shit, we're all fucked!" as the answer.

            One possiblity: a mix of "commanding heights socialism" (full or partial public control) for industries like heavy manufacturing that absolutely require large scale for efficiency. And aggressive distributism (widespread distribution of ownership of the means of production) for the rest of the economy. Something along the lines of the 1980s Doi Moi reforms that transformed Vietnam from a backward econom

        • by suutar ( 1860506 )

          essentially, we added a whole lot of luxury services (including manufacturing luxury goods) to keep folks busy - things machines couldn't do in a cost-effective manner (if at all). The issue is that the set of things machines can't do in a cost-effective manner that humans can do is shrinking. Certainly it'll be a while before machines can be creative, but most humans aren't all that creative either (at least, not in ways that are lucrative)...

        • by AvitarX ( 172628 )

          I wonder if there was any major social upheaval between 150 and 100 years ago.

        • by dryeo ( 100693 )

          One thing that happened was the labour market shrunk as kids were removed and put into school instead of working. This is still happening as kids are now expecte end a few years at university after 12 years of regular school instead of like my Dad, starting work at 15.

        • by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

          "there was nothing on the horizon to replace them"

          No, there was. The demand for workers in industry was high.

      • by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Friday August 16, 2019 @02:01PM (#59094706)
        The entire long-distance trucking industry in the U.S. is a side-effect of our Interstate Highway System. That artificially subsidized trucking - because of their higher ground pressure loading, trucks do something like 90% of the damage to our highways, but their fuel taxes only pay for about half of the maintenance and repair. The rest is paid by passenger cars. This subsidy dropped the cost to transport cargo by truck to below what it cost to transport it by trains. As a result, the rail industry in the U.S. shriveled up. That's why in most other countries, long distance transport is still done mostly by train.

        If you think about it, what are the advances we've seen in trucks? Double- and triple-trailer rigs. Larger fuel tanks so they can go further between refueling stops. Autonomous so they can drive with minimal human intervention. They're basically turning into trains. Just cut to the chase and eliminate the highway subsidy, so cargo transport will shift back to trains. It was impossible in previous decades because the trucking industry staunchly opposed it, and they represent 3.5 million drivers = 3.5 million jobs = 3.5 million voters. But the advent of autonomous trucks should convince everyone that the writing is on the wall. Those truck driver jobs are going to disappear one way or another. Do it in the way which makes most economic sense - eliminate the trucking subsidy so cargo moves back to cheaper rail.
        • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday August 16, 2019 @02:47PM (#59094944)
          and that they're cheaper than Trucks then you haven't been paying attention.

          The reason we ship so much by Truck is that it's more flexible. As a business I can order exactly what I need.

          Think of it like network latency. Trains have a ton of bandwidth but high latency. Trucks have lower bandwidth buch much lower latency.

          That means Walmart can keep less on their shelves without running out. First, it's a huge competitive advantage because they don't need to keep a massive warehouse of merchandise. That means less space wasted and less money sunk into inventory sitting on the shelf. Those savings help them undercut competitors.

          More importantly it means if a product stops selling they have almost none of it. When I was a kid I had a mountain of toys despite being poor because of the discount bin. I'd buy last year's toys for literally 90% off. Sure, I never had the really popular stuff ( think more Sky Commanders and BraveStar than GI Joe and He-Man), but I had a lot more toys than a kid at my income level would today.

          Now when something doesn't sell you've got 3 of them on the shelf and that's it. You mark 'em down 20% and don't order more. The same goes for Halloween candy. 50% off is the best I see these days and that barely gets the cost in line with Sam's Club & Costco. When I was a kid it was 80% off day one and by day 5 there was still Candy on the shelf for 95% off. Like they were paying you to take it away.
          • That's all fine and dandy if Walmart and their customers pay for that flexibility and lean stocking by properly bearing the cost of supporting trucks on the road, through merchandise prices. They aren't. That's the problem.

        • Passenger cars do not pay the majority of, or even half the cost of maintaining the road system. Source: https://uspirg.org/reports/usp... [uspirg.org] Electric vehicles pay NO fuel taxes, and hybrids pay very little. The car fleet has become more fuel efficient while trucks have hovered around 6 mpg for decades. The contact area of a truck tire is both longer and wider than the equivalent car tire, and trucks are required to add axles to spread the weight over more area, adding additonal tires. What this means i
      • I suspect the law will still require the safety driver for much longer than is really necessary.

        Also, I would want to know what the cost of one of these things is versus how much it costs to run a regular driver. Commercial truck driving's in very high demand right now (not enough drivers and everyone's got stuff to transport), so it seems like these systems may pay for themselves up to a point, but once more of these vehicles get out there and the supply rises, demand's going to drop and driver wages wi
      • by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot@worf.ERDOSnet minus math_god> on Friday August 16, 2019 @04:52PM (#59095364)

        because the only thing they need to do is slam on breaks at the right moment and get the truck off the road if it starts to break down.

        And that's for what, maybe 10, 20 years before even the Safety driver goes by-by? Truck driving is a shit job, but it was a middle class shit job. We're about to lose 3 million middle class jobs and there's nothing on the horizon to replace them except "Learn to Code"....

        And no, the service economy isn't gonna work. If nobody has money for services then there's no service economy.

        FYT, truck driving is a service job.

        But truck driving is not a middle class job, at least it hasn't been since the 80s deregulation. Sure there are a few companies out there that pay decently, but the megacarriers all pay a pittance, and don't even cover downtime (guess what, you wait 8 hours at the dock, you're not paid!). Plus, the megacarriers have it all structured out so you can be in debt forever with their training and ownership costs and "leasing" programs. And nevermind how miles simply disappear. Road trips would be much shorter if distances were in truck company miles (or how 1000 actual miles pays out at 800 miles).

        And the megacarriers get the jobs because they squeeze the driver, so they can quote the lowest rates to everyone needing to ship stuff, getting them the jobs. The small carriers have to carve out little niches that enable them to pay much better.

        Yes, most people point to the deregulation of trucking as the cause of the lowering of wages paid and the elimination of truck driving from a profession to someone just sitting behind the wheel piling on the miles. Hell, even the training's like a day spent in a truck stop parking lot learning how to park the thing (a sign to pull out and go somewhere else - would you want a student driver learning how to back up next to your truck? Remember all damages come out of your pocket...).

        Oh, and yes, the megacarriers are the ones who are wholeheartedly endorsing autonomous trucks.

        • if you do timed runs you still make good money. A few years of that and you buy your own truck. Yeah, there's a ton of guys getting screwed to an insane degree but there's still a path there.
      • by RyoShin ( 610051 )

        I actually envision a future where the safety driver is replaced by a safety observer, some person who is watching through a camera remotely. Could even handle multiple streams at once, keeping an eye on them to make sure nothing goes FUBAR. If something seems off they can send commands to have it pull over, or activate the breaks.

        It will still be lower pay, but it could also be work for people who are home-locked for whatever reason; limited mobility, for example (but not so limited that they can't handle

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        We'll do the same thing we've always done. We'll make up some more jobs so people can pretend they're important. Only a few % of the population actually create new value as it is. The rest just pass it around.

      • Who puts on the chains? Self-chaining? Magic?
  • If no one knew... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by weilawei ( 897823 ) on Friday August 16, 2019 @12:36PM (#59094410)

    Does that mean SkyNet is active already?

    Sometimes I wonder if people understand words like "none", "all", "every", and so on...

    • Does that mean SkyNet is active already?

      Sometimes I wonder if people understand words like "none", "all", "every", and so on...

      That was my first thought too... how did these self-driving trucks infiltrate UPS without the people at UPS knowing? Waymo and Tesla should stop what they're doing, trucks are evolving self-driving by themselves they don't need man to make them self-driving.

    • Yeah. Nobody knows how to talk right.

  • by Tihstae ( 86842 ) <Tihstae@gmail.com> on Friday August 16, 2019 @12:41PM (#59094426) Homepage

    Headline is misleading. Skynet isn't here yet. The robots didn't do this by themselves. Some one knew.

  • Sure they are doing it there. That's basically an ideal case.

    • by ghoul ( 157158 )

      Do you not use computers today just because they cant do everything?
      Even if the ideal case is taken over by autonomous trucks and humans are only used for no ideal cases its still a cost saving.

      • Even if the ideal case is taken over by autonomous trucks and humans are only used for no ideal cases its still a cost saving.

        It will be when it costs less to put an AV on the road for its practical lifespan than to hire a driver for that time. I suspect we're still just in the spending-money-on-development phase, even in the ideal case.

        I'll be impressed when the long-haul trucks can handle any freeway in America. Not that I'm any kind of metric. But at that point the humans can just handle the in-town stuff, and that will be a massive shift.

        • But at that point the humans can just handle the in-town stuff, and that will be a massive shift.

          This would also allow the human driver to sleep while the truck drives itself. With proper scheduling, you could keep the truck operating on a continuous schedule with only a single driver.

    • Yep, and don't forget clear weather, good lighting, good road surfaces with good markings, etc.

  • by TWX ( 665546 ) on Friday August 16, 2019 @12:48PM (#59094446)

    This is where autonomous vehicles will actually shine. Forget the urban areas, that's going to be years.

    Set up freight depots on the outskirts of cities. Plan routes such that they generally avoid congested urban interstate freeways. Set up convoys with a lead driver (possibly acting as a passenger/safety officer) and depending on the length of the convoy, a tailgunner and possibly a mid-convoy minder. This kind of arrangement would allow a convoy of a dozen trucks to work in-tandem, where the lead driver/minder can take over for when actual problems are seen, and a mid-span minder or tailgunner could see if any of the trucks ahead of him have a problem, and could wait with a disabled truck for roadside assistance.

    In an ideal world it might even be possible to set up a pilot-car system. Drivers wouldn't remain with the convoy the whole time, they'd be based out of towns or cities along the route and would act as relay teams. For this Phoenix/Tucson leg, an escort based in Phoenix would start the convoy out and head south, hand it over to another escort near Casa Grande, and that escort would take it down to the depot in Tucson. The Tucson driver would have escorted his own convoy North, which the Phoenix escort would take the rest of the way up. This way drivers could actually be based near home so they wouldn't have to spend the night over-the-road or particularly have to contend with running out of time to legally drive on a shift.

    • You mean, like a freight train?
      • by uncqual ( 836337 )

        Except freight trains long ago got rid of the tailgunner (much to the relief of deer living near the tracks).

      • You mean, like a freight train?

        That's exactly it but without all the downsides that point-to-point train travel brings with it. If you think hard enough about automated trucking it's just freight train travel on the Interstate. However, the difference is rail's point to point nature makes it somewhat limiting. You can pull into a station, but your presence now clogs that rail line. You could segway off the main line and into a station but the nature of rail requires a bit of investment to do just that. You need switching, you need l

        • by TWX ( 665546 )

          There are some other fairly substantial differences compared to a train. Trucks are more quickly able to join and detach from a given convoy since they're not physically connected. Even if this sort of action only happens at freightyards, assuming that the trucks can automatically park and can automatically depart once given instructions, the actual labor to assemble a convoy is significantly less than to assemble a train.

          Second, each unit is individually powered. That provides the individual autonomy th

    • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      In an ideal world it might even be possible to set up a pilot-car system. Drivers wouldn't remain with the convoy the whole time, they'd be based out of towns or cities along the route and would act as relay teams. For this Phoenix/Tucson leg, an escort based in Phoenix would start the convoy out and head south, hand it over to another escort near Casa Grande, and that escort would take it down to the depot in Tucson. The Tucson driver would have escorted his own convoy North, which the Phoenix escort would take the rest of the way up. This way drivers could actually be based near home so they wouldn't have to spend the night over-the-road or particularly have to contend with running out of time to legally drive on a shift.

      So basically a modern day version of the Pony Express.

      • by apoc.famine ( 621563 ) <apoc.famine@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Friday August 16, 2019 @01:20PM (#59094562) Journal

        Hell, we could go one step further and make dedicated roads for these trucks. Then to further reduce costs, we could swap out the fragile tires for metal wheels and then lay down metal tracks so that the metal wheels don't damage the road.

        I'm off to the patent office now!

        • My city recently did rapid transit (buses) and had trouble finding room for the roads for that, so no dedicated roads probably isn't a very viable option. You need to own the land corridors.
          • And trains require low grade, which makes crossing mountain passes much more costly, or even impossible.

            • And also trains require switches for doing the simple task of changing a lane. Additionally those switches aren't every 10 feet since they cost a pretty penny.

          • "rapid transit (buses)"

            Man I hate it when people who ought to know better (transport planners) refer to buses as "rapid transit". There's nothing rapid about a bus. Unless you build a fully separate right of way for the buses - in which case the cost climbs much closer to the cost of rail-based rapid transit.

            Supposedly Bogata did a good separate right of way bus transit system, the TransMilenio. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransMilenio). I've not visited Bogota, so I can't comment on its effectiveness.

    • Yes, this makes sense. Also, expect a whole new class of issues and side affects, some you will not like.

      For the majority of trips a semi will save money, and once the safety driver is no longer needed you will see truck driver numbers dwindle.

      But expect that if the snow flies, or the weather is outside a safe operating envelope that liability will dictate the trucks not move. With truck driver numbers low, you will not be able to suddenly revert to meat-ware to make sure Christmas is not spoiled by an il

      • But expect that if the snow flies, or the weather is outside a safe operating envelope that liability will dictate the trucks not move.

        Good!

        So what if weather delays shipments that we didn't pay to treat as high priority? If its timing is critical, that'll be the in plan, and money will have been thrown at it. Then disposable human drivers can risk their lives (and the lives of the other idiots on the road) for me by driving under conditions where nobody in their right mind would be driving.

        But if it's li

    • by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
      So.. a train?
    • Set up convoys with a lead driver (possibly acting as a passenger/safety officer) and depending on the length of the convoy, a tailgunner and possibly a mid-convoy minder.

      Like this. [peloton-tech.com]

  • "No one knew"? How could those drivers in the truck possibly be unaware they were in a self-driving truck?
  • by Megahard ( 1053072 ) on Friday August 16, 2019 @01:04PM (#59094506)
  • I have been reading how truck drivers are in high demand for a while now. In fact, some immigrants with college degrees prefer working in long haul trucking because the pay is so good. But clearly, within a decade or so, this occupation will go the way of mechanical typesetters.

    • Yes and no. The straight shot repetitive routes will get automated for sure. Hauling jobs that require navigating construction sites, require frequent loading/unloading (car carrier, and moving trucks), and urban delivery jobs will all still warrant a human being on-board, even if they don't need to be at the wheel much of the time. What the ratio is I don't know, but trucker jobs will not become wholly obsolete overnight.

      Similarly expect that snow covered roads will resist automation longer than the sim

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • the U.S. ports are doing it too. At the two biggest (long beach and LA) on west coast after the cranes lower the stuff it's all robot. And they've already announced they're going full automated.

  • It seems like a good location, long stretches of straight highway, usually good weather although desert areas are known for high winds. How will the vehicles handle strong crosswinds? Would blowing dust affect the sensors>
  • by GoRK ( 10018 ) on Friday August 16, 2019 @01:28PM (#59094606) Homepage Journal

    I find it very interesting how all of the sudden this morning there are a hundred articles about this all saying "nobody knew."

    Then they include the photos of a big huge fucking 18 wheeler that sticks out like a sore thumb: It's plastered with an advertisement for the UPS self driving pilot program, has gobs of sensors bolted to it, and compliance language on every side.

    Does anyone have more information than this whiny baby PR copypasta-journalism shit?

  • How long before someone hits one of these?
    • How long before someone hits one of these?

      And? It'll be no different than the couple of 100 of flesh operated trucks that hit someone today. Nor any different than the 100 of flesh operated trucks that hit someone tomorrow. Nor any different than the 100 wacks from a semi truck that happen the day after that. And so on. The fact that these went a single day without hitting anyone is a massive improvement. Humans can't go 16 minutes without colliding into something.

  • Makes sense. No respectful human would ring the bell once then race out the parking lot before one can race to the door. No slip. No second ring. Just drop the package on wet ground and drive out the parking lot. Must be robots. *cough*
  • Sacramento to Reno.

    Especially in winter!

    I predict massive wrecks that will be quite popular on Youtube.

  • ... about their self-driving endeavours, you know it's about to become feasible.

    Intesting development in the "self-driving vehicle" department.
    We knew this day would come. Seems it's getting closer by the month.

  • Of course I still don't believe this 'technology' will ever actually get over the finish line, but if they force it and let these deadly machines out on the roads with no human to watch over it? Other drivers on the same roads, when they realize what it is, will back way, way off from it in fear of it causing an accident, therefore it won't have any 'obstacles' in it's way. Of course sooner or later, it being incapable of safely operating a vehicle under all circumstances a human could (because it cannot TH
    • Of course sooner or later, it being incapable of safely operating a vehicle under all circumstances a human could

      Yes, because us humans in aggregate are incredibly safe on the highways. It's just a perfect drive into town everyday on the highways because we're all so safe. Never do I see any cars tangled up into other cars because of some human error.

      there will be horrific accidents

      News flash, we already have those, we're pretty much numb from all the deaths that happen on the road. Hell, cars are the number one killer of children, not even an eye is being blinked at that.

      Wonder how many accidents and how many people will have to die before they ban them?

      Well my state has had about ~1200 deaths so far, there were ~1900 last year

      • You have NO IDEA what you're talking about, and this so-called 'technology' is a DEAD END that will never get across the finish line without someone cheating. You need real, full-on general AI, equivalent to a human mind, to fully and competently operate a motor vehicle. The half-assed garbage they keep trotting out as 'AI' is not up to the task because it has precisely ZERO cognitive ability; it cannot 'think', never has, never will, because we don't even have a CLUE how 'thinking' actually works! Go talk
        • You have NO IDEA what you're talking about..........

          Wow, way to change a topic. But just FYI, we didn't have to have a full understand of everything before we figured out how to deal with fire and cook food with it. Same diff.

          You are a fool to believe this crap is ever going to be safe or effective

          It's already safer than humans. That's the bar that it has to beat, it's already beat it. I don't have to believe anything, it's already done.

          people will continue to DIE, and it'll be because of an idiot machine that can't even explain why it fucked up

          Well the alternative is that we have humans that can't explain why they suddenly veered left and killed someone. I'm not really seeing how what you "think" will happen is any different than w

          • we didn't have to have a full understand of everything before we figured out how to deal with fire and cook food with it. Same diff.
            Not even close.
            It's already safer than humans.
            On pre-determined courses, with a human overseeing it every step of the way, and at slow (15mph) speeds. Not. Even. CLOSE.
            Well the alternative is that we have humans that can't explain why they suddenly veered left and killed someone.
            Well YOUR alternative is screaming in terror as your SDC suddenly veers left and kills YOU a
            • On pre-determined courses, with a human overseeing it every step of the way, and at slow (15mph) speeds. Not. Even. CLOSE.

              Clearly you didn't read the article.

              Well YOUR alternative is screaming in terror as your SDC suddenly veers left and kills YOU and you'll have ZERO control over the vehicle and will KNOW your'e going to die

              Well fuck that's a win in my book. Right now if my car veers left and I'm killed, it'll happen so fast, I didn't even see it coming. At least I can see myself dying in that case. Oh wait! There's a much better upside though. See if I die, the reason I died in my car remains forever lost to the void. If my car decides to murder me, at least they've got a couple of million data points to look over. OH! Not only that. The lessons that can be learned from me being de

  • How is it possible that they did this without knowing?
  • "TuSimple claims it can cut the average cost of shipping in a tractor-trailer by 30 percent"

    Isn't that a fancy way of saying they fired the driver, and replaced her with a lower paid position that has one control .. to slam on the brakes?

  • Where do I apply?

  • This shouldn't be a surprise. It's out in the middle of nowhere, weather is consistent, and traveling the same roads between transit points. This is, literally, self-driving t-ball.

    Everyone thinks self-driving vehicles have to be better than humans in every circumstance that can arise on the road. The next surprise will be trucks making this trip remotely monitored rather than having a safety spotter in the cab. Or one spotter at the lead of a convoy.

    This is really bad news for truck drivers.

  • After the gangs of thieves descend on these trucks, using electronic hacking of their systems, there will be a new movie, "Fast and Furious: Dallas to Arizona" in which our intrepid thieves steal valuable cargo just like it was done in real life.

  • Phoenix to Honolulu. Then watch it show up in Honolulu.

"The vast majority of successful major crimes against property are perpetrated by individuals abusing positions of trust." -- Lawrence Dalzell

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