Not sure about the truck drivers. I can see the benefits in making all the long-range truck deliveries drive through the night. This could be encouraged by time-of-use road charges for things like interstate highways, for a discount in registration fees or fuel taxes, I guess.
But delivery trucks will still need someone in them to make the deliveries. But what would change is that the delivery person could be doing things in the truck while on the rounds - this could be related or unrelated work.
Generally, if a technology transition releases a lot of productivity, it also drastically lowers cost of whatever is affected (delivered goods, which is everything). This, by rights, should free up a lot of extra money for people, which they can then spend on other things. The other things generally cause more economic activity somewhere else, which should create the new jobs.
But a portion of truck drivers will lose their job, with it never to return.
However, this can't be, nor should it be, stopped.
"if a technology transition releases a lot of productivity, it also drastically lowers cost of whatever is affected (delivered goods, which is everything). This, by rights, should free up a lot of extra money for people"
And here is the problem. What actually happens is the people who control "production" end up with most of this extra money.
What actually happens is the people who control "production" end up with most of this extra money.
This is not true. It's actually a pretty well-understood economic phenomena.
When changes to pricing is forced by changes in upstream costs, as with this example, but also as forced by increased taxes/fees, etc., you can predict who will bear the brunt of the cost (or enjoy the windfall) based on the elasticity of the buyer.
For example, we know that the elasticity for gasoline is very inelastic, because consumption only changes a small amount in response to price changes. This means that an increase in taxes on the petroleum industry will be borne mostly by the consumer, and not the producer.
However, for other industries where consumers are more likely to change their spending habits in relation to price changes, it will be the consumers that are on the winning side.
Not really. You would only end up with one group controlling all the extra money if there was a monopoly and pricing control. Even if you have a handful of shipping companies with the automated delivery technology whatever cost gains there are will soon be passed onto the customers.
Lowered cost of production always results in lowered cost of goods, which either raises quality for the same price, or lowers cost and released cash for other purchases.
Delivery men could be automated too. A robot with package safe and some kind of pre-determined passcode could be sufficient. Insurance or onboard sensing to surveil would-be thieves would cover some of the safety issues.
And to avoid even more problems the delivery network could work with post offices to put these safes in place of P/O boxes. Australia Post already does this - you receive a package and they send you an SMS with the code to unlock the safe they've left it in. The delivery truck would just put the packages in the safe totally autonomously.
I think robot delivery men are farther off than automated long haul trucks. Having a robot that can find the front door of an arbitrary residence and get to it from the street is more than a little bit beyond our current capabilities.
I've been wondering about this, and I think it's totally doable so long as you don't get stuck thinking about a literal "robot delivery man". The model I was considering was more along the lines of 1) park as close as possible to the target address 2) send SMS notifying the recipient that you've arrived. 3) recipient has a 5-10min window to go out to the waiting truck, swipe a card or whatever for ID purposes, and receive the goods.
It's a somewhat different experience to a human knocking on your door, but I'm sure it could be made to work.
Automated delivery vehicles may be able to do better in terms of offering a choice of delivery time, and sending accurate estimates of arrival time. There's considerable scope for doing a better job of delivering to households where there is usually nobody home during "working hours".
Yes, I was doing the typical constrained thinking of trying to apply new technology to an existing format.
What you're essentially describing is a motorised set of po boxes. Which would work brilliantly. For pizza delivery it's a motorised warmer oven with multiple components, probably looking a lot like those little motorised droids that are always zipping around the ankles of actors in Star Wars films.
Between 'drive this truck 50 mph on city streets through traffic to a destination address' and 'carry this package from the curb to the front door' I'd have thought the first one would be more difficult to solve.
They are further off but it's a completely unrealistic endeavor at this point in time. With automated vehicles automated delivery men become much more palpable, if not inevitable . As more and more people become comfortable with automation it will only further the other areas where robotics could really make an impact.
But delivery trucks will still need someone in them to make the deliveries. But what would change is that the delivery person could be doing things in the truck while on the rounds - this could be related or unrelated work.
Generally, if a technology transition releases a lot of productivity, it also drastically lowers cost of whatever is affected (delivered goods, which is everything). This, by rights, should free up a lot of extra money for people, which they can then spend on other things. The other things generally cause more economic activity somewhere else, which should create the new jobs.
But a portion of truck drivers will lose their job, with it never to return.
However, this can't be, nor should it be, stopped.