Another autonomous trucking startup has weighed in on Andrew Yang’s proposals for the trucking industry, seeking to debunk the Democratic presidential candidate’s ideas about the negative impacts of self-driving technology on truck driver employment.
“The belief that technological advancements of labor-saving equipment will lead to long-term unemployment is a fallacy that can lead to great harm,” Robbie Miller, CEO and chief safety officer of San Francisco-based Pronto, said in a lengthy email to FreightWaves.
Miller became CEO in August after previous chief executive and founder Anthony Levandowski was charged with stealing trade secrets from Google subsidiary Waymo.
His email to FreightWaves followed last week’s publication of an article describing Yang’s policies, which would compensate American workers for job losses stemming from automation, particularly in the trucking industry.
A certain strain of Luddite-ism is embedded in Yang’s proposals, Miller suggested.
“Would it be wise to think we could employ significantly more people if we carried goods on our backs instead of by truck?” he asked.
The history of innovation shows that labor-saving technology does not lead to drops in employment, he said, “but instead produces large benefits to society including higher-paying jobs.”
Trucking issue in 2020 presidential campaign
Potential job losses stemming from automation are a hot button political issue, and many self-driving vehicle companies are unwilling to enter the fray by commenting publicly on Yang’s proposals, which include a tax on self-driving trucking companies.
At the same time, AV companies are taking great pains to defend themselves against the two primary criticisms leveled against self-driving trucks: that they are unsafe and will lead to widespread job losses.
In his email, Miller outlined a series of examples in which labor-saving technology led to “significantly more” people working in the affected industry.
There are more retail jobs in America today than there were before the introduction of e-commerce, he said. The introduction of the ATM led to a comparable increase in bank teller jobs.
“Even though the number of bank workers per bank transaction has dramatically reduced,” Miller said, “the ATMs ushered in an era where the total number of banking transactions increased by so much that, in absolute numbers, more bank tellers were needed.”
Miller said similar increases in employment will likely occur in trucking.
The claim that retail and bank teller jobs have increased with the introduction of new technologies is a controversial topic among economists, with some reports disputing figures of increased employment.
AV profits invested in labor
Diving more deeply into trickle-down theories of autonomous trucking on freight demand and employment, Miller said the cost savings that come from carriers not having to hire drivers will ultimately increase the number of workers in trucking and other sectors of the economy.
That seeming paradox stems from the fact that carriers “may only use new profits from labor savings in one of three ways,” according to Miller.
The first is to expand its business and purchase more autonomous trucks. The second is to invest the profits in another industry, and the third is to sink profits into the carrier’s own consumption (of other goods and services) or distribute to shareholders so they can buy more consumer products and stimulate the economy and job growth with their purchases.
“No matter which option the trucking company chooses, employment will increase,” Miller said, “and it will likely increase in sectors that today’s truck drivers have the skills to do.”
Elastic demand another employment driver
Another labor booster will result as the cost savings generated by autonomous trucking brings down the cost of goods, leading to an increase in consumer purchasing, Miller believes, and “then more people may be employed to move goods than before autonomous trucks were introduced.”
Finally, Miller said, even if consumers don’t respond to a fall in the price, autonomy will result in additional employment.
He cited a hypothetical example in which the price to move a truckload from Los Angeles to Dallas post-autonomy is cut from $1,700 to $1,000 — and not a single additional shipment was made.
The result is that each buyer now has an additional $700 to spend on something else “and so provide increased employment in other lines,” Miller said.
Populist politics
Yang is by any metric an outsider candidate. But in an era dominated by populist politics — and an increasingly fluid Democratic presidential playing field — his policies are gaining traction, giving industry players yet another reason to hone their talking points around the potential social benefits of autonomation.
Pronto is pursuing a more incremental path toward autonomous driving than many of its competitors. Its Copilot system is a Level 2 safety system that uses a camera-based software suite to control braking, throttling and steering.
Tracee Lynn
There will be a lot of job for thousands of people who have worked as truck drivers for years. Great concern for pay grade changes because of change in job. Cost for training in a new skill set just to have to work up the pay grade again. This doesn’t matter? Wrong, it does. For generations, (decades and decades) people have worked and trained to be truck drivers. Why are you trying to eliminate a group of workers? Greed of money, to the financial loss of others by elimination of their jobs. This is only one side of the personal problem this will have. The other side is the potential loss of personal life because of auto driver machine. A big truck going down the highway weighing 50,000 lbs is not the place to start. Cars at this point are required to have an alert driver behind the wheel. I do realize there have been accidents with human drivers, I still think we are better off with a human drivers.
Anthony Roy Morrison
The irony here is truck driving doesn’t just require you know how to drive a truck, there’s way more to it than just driving.
You have to know how to scale your load for all applicable bridge laws, pre trip and post trip every trailer, and trucking isn’t about going forward it’s all about backing up. So what will this machine do when it has an air leak, or a blowout ?
There is just too many technical issues where a diesel mechanic would have to be present.
Needless
These CEO’s of automation cars and trucks have a vested interest in defending their products. The only job loss they care about is their own, period. They are not fooling anybody in no way form or fashion.
Kenith Langley
Like he said in the article. STOCK HOLDERS will be the the ones that will benefit from this. Not the drivers that had to get out of the industry. We all know this is not a career path for everyone. People are going to come and go like any other industry. Real people knows the real problem in this business and its not the drivers. It’s the Cheap freight Brokerages and 3PL companies that’s killing the transportation industry. They are the one’s that needs to be replaced. If the government get rid of them all. Look how much money will go back into the driver’s payroll with good benefits, new equipment and the owner will benefit at the some time.
Calvin
Truth! Most factorys that employed 3k people 10 years ago do it with 350 people! Fuck tech it has not made anything cost less in my book! Shit cost 3 times what it did 10 years ago! Only big carriers will win like always with automation. The middle man robs everybody in every industry!
Yehuda P
Yang’s argument is not that technology is a net job killer, but rather that there needs to be a solution for the millions affected by the inevitable layoffs. Retraining he says has been shown to have very poor results. There is a shift toward more technical, higher paying jobs, but these are filled with highly skilled workers. Those in less skilled professions get left out of the workforce, facing difficulty retraining and supporting their families. Especially where the minimum wage is continually raised, why would you hire someone unskilled when you can get someone better? The reality is there’s people who are just not cut out for “the jobs of the future.” Your argument boils down to it being a temporary issue as technology evolves. But that ‘temporary’ issue is manifested in decades of unemployment and hurting families. Yes others get new jobs, but millions are affected today. And it’s not just automation he wants to solve for. He feels people should have some cushion to try something new – to quit a job, to get out of an abusive relationship, to raise a family, to start a business etc. It’s not enough to live on for long, but it’s a cushion. And for those struggling to get by, to find a place to live, and to support a family this may give that peace of mind. Financial stability is needed for healthy families, academic success and will eventually lead to a stronger, larger and even more technically advanced workforce. Unskilled workers are often unskilled because their family situation never allowed for them to succeed. A small safety net such as the Freedom Dividend could make all the difference and lead to a new generation not affected by family stress and lack of opportunity.
That said, $1000 month for everyone over 18 I agree is pretty aggressive. I probably would have first proposed two bailouts per person at the time of your choice no questions asked but not within 4 years of the last bailout period (after losing a job, to go to school, whatever). And I would call it a bailout just like the banks got.
Yehuda P
On the last idea, it would be 2-3 bailout periods of 2-4 years at the time of your choosing, and perhaps this could be in addition as opposed to a replacement of other aid programs. I think this would have gotten a lot more traction than straight out UBI.
David O.
Yea it will create jobs, but not jobs for truckers. Maybe computer scientists and high level technicians.
Bennett Haah
This is an unfair argument, as it claims that Andrew Yang is wrong without actually explaining Yang’s claims. Andrew isn’t claiming that automation is a big bad evil, or that the job loss will be permanent, or that no industries will see growth. What is true, though, if you take in account that this automation is happening in every industry, is a cycle of repetitive work being automated, saving money for companies to spend in ways that will likely contribute to more automation of jobs, either in their own business or in another. Some industries will grow, like these autonomous vehicle companies and software development, but there is the question of whether or not there will be enough jobs and whether or not a trucker can fill that job. This argument implies that trucking is the only industry that will be widely automated, but it’s not even the first one that’s been hit by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. 4 million manufacturing workers were automated away in the Midwest, and the majority of them never found their way back into the workforce. In the end, money that these companies save will go towards increased spending, but won’t go toward increased employment (at a high enough ratio).
Dewayne Thomas
Lol. Every example he gave as to what would happen results in no job generation. The entire point of them buying automated trucks is to cut workers off their bottom line. And he’s trying to convince people the owners won’t just bank that money or blow it on Wall Street. If anything, Yang’s policies will spur growth in the industry. This guy doesn’t care though because it’s his own bottom line he’s worried about. When the Truckers do slow rolls and eventually riot he personally won’t be affected. The companies that buy his trucks will be. It’s disgusting what people will destroy just to keep a slightly larger piece of the pie for themselves.
Stephen
Agree. From now on every presidential candidate should be asked about his position on AV.
AV would be good only in the military.
Imdia baned AV to protect jobs. We should organize and protest against AV.