The “3,000,000 truck drivers” who were supposedly at risk from self-driving tech are a mirage. The US Standard Occupational Survey conflates “truck drivers” with “driver/sales workers.” “Trucker” also includes delivery drivers and anyone else operating a heavy-goods vehicle.
The truckers who were supposedly at risk from self-driving cars were long-haul freight drivers, a minuscule minority among truck drivers. The theory was that we could replace 16-wheelers with autonomous vehicles who traveled the interstates in their own dedicated, walled-off lanes, communicating vehicle to vehicle to maintain following distance. The technical term for this arrangement is “a shitty train.”
What’s more, long-haul drivers do a bunch of tasks that self-driving systems couldn’t replace: “checking vehicles, following safety procedures, inspecting loads, maintaining logs, and securing cargo.”
But again, even if you could replace all the long-haul truckers with robots, it wouldn’t justify the sky-high valuations that self-driving car companies attained during the bubble. Long-haul truckers are among the most exploited, lowest paid workers in America. Transferring their wages to their bosses would only attain a modest increase in profits, even as it immiserated some of America’s worst-treated workers.
But the twin lies of self-driving truck — that these were on the horizon, and that they would replace 3,000,000 workers — were lucrative lies. They were the story that drove billions in investment and sky-high valuations for any company with “self-driving” in its name.
For the founders and investors who cashed out before the bubble popped, the fact that none of this was true wasn’t important. For them, the goal of successful self-driving cars was secondary. The primary objective was to convince so many people that self-driving cars were inevitable that anyone involved in the process could become a centimillionaire or even a billionaire.
- Google's AI Hype Circle: We have to do Bard because everyone else is doing AI; everyone else is doing AI because we're doing Bard.
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Things that happen at work:
Got hired by a trucking company doing admin to safety stuff.
My new boss, in the interview: I’d love to have you start on *specific date* so that we can do the on boarding stuff, but we’re going to have the Driver Appreciation BBQ literally the day after and I want everyone to meet you.
Me: That’s honestly a good plan. I’m completely available for whatever happens, what time do I need to be there?
My actual second day of being hired and going through the whole set up of Driver Appreciation BBQ Day:
*chopped four onions for burgers and sobbed in the break room*
My boss: *lightly supervises but is honestly a Party Queen because she’s a Hispanic mom and is used to throwing parties for 100 plus people in her own backyard let alone a work bbq, you don’t even understand she literally looked at the corporate list of supplies and was like “nah, too much. Mmm. Maybe. Hm. Not enough.” AND WAS EXACTLY RIGHT she owns her own bouncy house, she’s got this shit on lockdown, ok?
So like two hours into this polite bullshit introductory hell scape (I am fine with meeting new people in large groups but I hate meeting people in “sterile corporate” settings, like, if I’m going to remember you, it’s because you did something actually meaningful or interesting, NOT because you shook my hand for five seconds and said you go by Steve or Becky…)
Me, to EVERYONE because my job is to Hand Out Shirts and Lunchboxes: Hi! I’m the new girl from Safety! Who are you exactly? Please don’t expect me to remember you, I’m terrible at putting names and faces together, but I’m sure we’ll talk again soon! What size T-shirt do you want? Here’s your lunch box!
Me: *finally gets a break and sits down to eat some honestly decent brauts and potato salad, deliberately choosing to sit next to one of the drivers that’s been at the company for a while* Hi, how’s it going? I’m the new safety girl!
Older driver whose name I don’t know YET: I’m doin’ pretty good with all this free food. So, you gonna stick around after the little one comes along, or are you gonna leave us high and dry like the last one?
Me, honestly pretty angry but trying to be cool: Not pregnant, just fat.
*very very very awkward silence, like this dude knew that he fucked up, but also the way my body is shaped I really don’t blame him for thinking what he did*
He did actually apologize right then and there, and honestly the entire way he went about everything was from a genuinely good place, and I personally thought it was funny after it was all said and done. Verbal on the spot forgiveness type stuff.
Guess who fucks up the very next day by UNINTENTIONALLY losing a very important document of the exact driver who “insulted” me?
Yeah. So. I spent my entire first week on a brand new job searching through three giant filing cabinets and 20 years worth of documents for ONE fucking medical card. I didn’t find it. Believe me, I looked at every single piece of paper in those cabinets, I have no fucking clue where I put it.
The driver was really nice about it and we had a good laugh about him putting his foot in his mouth and me swearing up and down I didn’t do it for revenge.
Honestly I have no idea how any of this will turn out, but every one seems nice so far so I’m really hopeful.
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Weekend Jumble - Hot Men - Hot Socks
Those Legs in those Gray Socks and the Boots and that Look, all of the sudden you think Cruising the Truck Stop may not have been that Good of a Idea
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Latin American truck drivers are reportedly planning a service boycott of Florida in response to Governor Ron DeSantis's new legislation concerning migrants.
Migrant crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border are once again in the national spotlight after Title 42 expired this week. Enacted by former President Donald Trump in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the measure allowed for the rapid expulsion of undocumented migrants found crossing into the U.S. on the grounds that doing so would help prevent the spread of the virus. It came to an end, along with all other remaining pandemic emergency protocols, on Thursday, leading to concern from some that it would lead to a spike in crossings at a time when various crises have already led to an overall surge in migrants seeking entry into the U.S.
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