Octopus Overlords

Truck drivers worried about losing their jobs to robots staged a protest outside the Capitol building in Jefferson City, Missouri on Tuesday.

Their goal was to convince the government to pass a bill that would prohibit any self-driving trucks from driving on Missouri roads, KRCG reports. While there are no autonomous trucks handling shipping jobs in the state yet, the truckers see the emerging technology as a grave threat to their job security and livelihoods — unrest that signals what can happen when jobs are automated without giving thought to the displaced workers.

Rio Tinto has placed orders for autonomous trucks and drills for its forthcoming $2.6 billion “intelligent mine” Koodaideri.

The miner said today that it will buy “a fleet of 20 autonomous 793F trucks as well as four autonomous blast drills” from Caterpillar and the heavy equipment maker’s Western Australian dealer WesTrac.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Fri Aug 23, 2019 12:56 am I've told my kids that the best job security for them would be to go into robotics. Fixing the workforce may be the biggest industry in the world soon.

Johannes Betz is not your typical racing car driver.

For a start, he doesn't get in the vehicle - it's driverless. As a post-doctoral researcher, he is in charge of the Technical University of Munich's entry in the Roborace motorsport competition, now in its first competitive season.

All these cars are electric and self-driving. "We started in early 2017, when my professor saw this in a newspaper," he says.

"Each month, we have to develop our software a little further, and then go to an event - yeah, like Formula 1," he laughs.

Each team - the University of Pisa and electric van start-up Arrival also compete - writes software for an identical racing car, currently the DevBot 2.0, which is capable of speeds over 200mph (322km/h).

It is guided by six cameras, two radars, 18 ultrasound sensors, and five lidar [light detection and ranging] sensors. The onboard computer processor is capable of 24 trillion operations a second.

But what is the point of racing driverless cars?

It's an important way to assess the quality of the sensors and cameras which autonomous vehicles (AVs) will rely on, explains Mr Balcombe.

And "testing performance limits on real roads is not something, as a member of society, I'm 100% comfortable with," he says.

He plans to introduce obstacles for the DevBots to navigate, such as slower-moving lorries and tractors. Overtaking is the hardest race course task to automate, says Dr Betz.

The ultimate aim is to find out whether driverless cars can eventually "perform at a level so you can't detect it's an AI," Mr Balcombe says.

gameoverman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 1:36 pm I think that the most anyone can hope for is to be a speed bump to progress, by trying to use laws to protect jobs from technology. Maybe we should bring the horse and buggy back?

gameoverman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 1:36 pm I think that the most anyone can hope for is to be a speed bump to progress, by trying to use laws to protect jobs from technology. Maybe we should bring the horse and buggy back?

The luxury automaker has become the first in the nation to start selling self-driving cars—at least those that afford riders a hands-free experience—to regular consumers. As of April 11, there were 65 Mercedes autonomous vehicles available for sale in California, Fortune has learned through an open records request submitted to the state’s DMV. One of those has since been sold, which marks the first sale of an autonomous Mercedes in California, according to the DMV. Mercedes would not confirm sales numbers. Select Mercedes dealerships in Nevada are also offering the cars with the new technology, known as “level 3” autonomous driving.
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California and Nevada are the only two states where the company can legally sell the technology to consumers. The two state DMVs gave Mercedes approval to begin selling the cars last year—Nevada in January, and California in June.
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Drivers can activate Mercedes’s technology, called Drive Pilot, when certain conditions are met, including in heavy traffic jams, during the daytime, on specific California and Nevada freeways, and when the car is traveling less than 40 mph. Drivers can focus on other activities until the vehicle alerts them to resume control. The technology does not work on roads that haven’t been pre-approved by Mercedes, including on freeways in other states.
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U.S. customers can buy a yearly subscription of Drive Pilot in 2024 EQS sedans and S-Class car models for $2,500. Mercedes began selling level 3-enabled cars in its home country of Germany in May 2022. The European packages cost 5,000 to 7,000 euros ($5,300 and $7,500) for a three-year membership.

Kraken wrote: ↑Fri Apr 19, 2024 9:46 pm Funny, just yesterday I pined for a self-driving car as we spent 90 minutes inching through 15 miles of rush-hour traffic. I'd trust L3 autonomy at 10 mph.

Unagi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 22, 2024 9:01 pm I like the idea of cars that can turn into 'trains' on the highway, and they all link together - until a car requests "out".

milo wrote: ↑Mon Apr 22, 2024 11:52 pm

Unagi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 22, 2024 9:01 pm I like the idea of cars that can turn into 'trains' on the highway, and they all link together - until a car requests "out".

Seems like that would suck for all the other cars on the road. No matter what speed that train is going, it would be hard to navigate around it.