WEBVTT - Human vs. Machine: Self-Driving Trucks 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:03.120 Decrypted is brought to you by red Hat, whose broad 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:06.520 portfolio of open source technologies for the enterprise helps you 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:08.760 get from where you are to where you want to be. 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:12.879 Red Hat the open technology to help you realize your vision. 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:16.079 Learn more at red hat dot com slash open Tech. 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:24.720 That that truck we call the red and white one, 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:27.880 that's the bust of our videos. Um, what's the truck 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:33.120 we're writing called buster Buster? Okay? A couple of weeks ago, 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:35.760 I went down to South Florida for a road trip 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:44.640 in a self driving truck. Ready. Yeah, I was sitting 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:46.720 in the back of a cabin on a bed, actually 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:50.360 in a freight Liner Cascadia. That's like the biggest, baddest 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:53.240 truck you can buy. We're on Florida's Highway twenty seven 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.320 with the Everglades on either side. Truckers call this part 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:59.640 of Florida Alligator Alley. I was riding along with a 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:11.000 team from star Ski Robotics, and then the driver, Jeff Runions, 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:13.240 took his hands off the steering wheel and slid his 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:16.560 feet off the petals. Oh my god, this sounds terrifying. 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:18.240 And you're on a bed. I mean there are there 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.280 even seatbelts no seatbelts, and Brad, I don't know if 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:23.880 you realize how big and heavy these trucks are, and 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:26.720 they go fast, and all of a sudden he takes 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:28.319 his feet off the petals and then a gust of 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:31.119 wind hit the truck and the computer sort of lurched 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:37.160 us towards the left wane. He's trying to fight. I 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:39.280 was freaking out, but everybody else in the truck was 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:42.120 acting pretty much normal. Maybe they knew something about the 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:44.279 air bags in the back of the vehicle that you didn't. 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:47.640 There weren't any air bags, but there were algorithms, and 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:50.320 those algorithms need a little bit of time to understand 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:52.800 the driving conditions on a given day and to figure 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:54.919 out just how much to sort of push the steering 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:57.920 wheel to fight against the wind. You are in the morning, 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:08.480 when before you have your bath. Star Ski is still 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:11.040 fine tuning its technology to make sure it works in 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:14.600 all scenarios, and if they succeed for truckers, which is 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:17.200 one of the most common jobs in the United States, 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:41.040 that could mean huge changes. Back. Hi, I'm Brad Stone 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:44.480 and I'm Max Chapkin, And this week on Decrypted, I 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:48.799 ride a robot truck from Fort Lauderdale to Tallahassee. From 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:51.680 small startups to Silicon Valley's biggest tech companies in the 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:55.160 world's largest automakers, there's a race to build a software 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:58.320 that could power a future of cards without drivers. Long 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:00.920 haul trucking will likely be one of the first areas 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:04.680 to feel this profound shake up. This technology promises to 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:07.720 make our road safer and our goods cheaper, but it's 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:11.280 a transition that will have consequences. Trucking is worth seven 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:14.000 hundred billion dollars in the U. S Alone right, and 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:16.519 it employs a lot of people. More than three million 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:19.560 Americans drive trucks for a living, and another four million 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:23.160 support the trucking economy and jobs like waitressing and roadside 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:26.239 cafes and being a gas station attendant. It's also a 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:29.840 job that lower income Americans depend on. What happens to 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.560 these workers is a question that needs to be answered. 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:35.960 This episode kicks off a series of pieces about technology 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:38.640 that threatens to replace jobs. It's one of the most 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:41.840 important tech stories of our time. If you have a 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:43.560 story to share with us about your job and the 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:46.800 oncoming wave of automation, record a voice message and send 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:55.640 it to decrypted at Bloomberg dot net. So Max, Right now, 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:59.600 self driving car research is absolutely dominated by big name 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:04.520 comp and is Google, Uber, Ford and and GM, pretty 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:07.880 much every Detroit automaker, the Chinese companies. So how did 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:10.800 you find the small start up Starsky Robotics and why 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:13.520 does the startup even matter? Right now? What's interesting? I 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:15.680 got tipped off by one of their investors. They were 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:18.919 backed by y Combinator, so shortly before demo day, I 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:21.600 got tipped off, and people suggest I talked to him. 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:23.680 But I think it's important to remember that a lot 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:27.000 of these big companies working on driver list tech were 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:30.160 really small, just very recently. The other thing that that 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:32.320 drew me this is this guy was a little different. 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:35.080 So I went to South Florida to see Starsky's trucks 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:39.520 in action. My name is Stephan Seltzox Marker, and I'm 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:42.880 the CEO and co founder of star Skirobotics, self driving 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:47.720 truck company. Stephen is Starsky CEO. I found him interesting 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:52.279 partly because of what he's not like. So I didn't 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:55.120 go to Stanford. I didn't participate with two thousand four 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:59.360 Dropper Grand Challenge. I'm not a Google exer. I don't 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:02.080 really have any of the credentials of someone who's supposed 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:05.000 to be good at this space. What interested me about 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:07.760 Starsky was the sort of difference there, and also the 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:09.960 fact that they had this different approach, which is that 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:13.359 they're planning to use remote control drivers, basically people in 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:16.359 call centers who are overseeing trucks. So if you're a 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:19.320 truck driver, you don't necessarily have to spend three weeks 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:22.080 in a truck, sleeping in your cab, eating truck stop food, 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:24.679 talking on a CB radio. You just go to an office, 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:27.120 you sit in a desk, you drive a truck for 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:28.960 eight hours, and then you go home and see your family. 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:31.520 I'm imagining this new new job is a little bit 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:33.880 like playing Mario Kart for a living. It actually sounds 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:37.560 kind of fun. The other thing is that Starsky, unlike 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:41.200 other truck companies, is actually hauling cargo. So while they're 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:43.719 collecting data and trying to log all these research midles, 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:46.080 like all the other companies, they've also got like a 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:48.239 load in the back of the truck that they're getting paid, 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:50.960 you know, a modest amount of money for right, And 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:53.159 we should know that many of these other companies have 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:56.000 deployed lots of capital to to this kind of research. 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:59.680 Starsky is only raised around five million dollars. Is the 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:04.680 strategy of using real cargo presenting a different set of challenges. Though, Yeah, 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:06.960 it sounds easy to run a trucking company, but it's 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:10.400 not necessarily their Their first truck, which they nicknamed Rosebud, 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:12.640 broke down even before they could get it out of 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:17.200 San Francisco. And what was wrong with Rosebud, like, well, 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:20.400 the bad alternator or something. So have you ever bought 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:24.880 a truck before? Neither? And I that's that's the core 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:27.920 problem with Rosebud. I bought. I bought a truck off 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:35.760 an auction site. Starsky, as we mentioned, is just one 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:39.240 of many companies working on this. The Silicon Valley companies 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:42.160 of course, Detroit and and the big companies like bay 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:44.359 Do in China that think they can make an impact, 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:47.960 and Brad, don't forget the big trucking companies Volvo, Daimler, 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:50.440 all the big names and trucking are also getting it 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:53.760 in the space. So where is Starsky relative to these 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:57.000 giants in terms of progress? So what stars He's going 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:00.360 for is what's known as level three autonomy. And let 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:04.000 me just explain quickly Level one autonomy is cruise control, 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:06.679 your basic thing that is in lots of cars. Level 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.880 two is cruise control and what's known as lane keeping, 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:12.320 where the car will sort of steer for you. Okay, 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:14.480 so take your hands off the wheel, but for god's sake, 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:16.760 don't take a nap, right And Level three, what we're 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:20.080 talking about with Starsky, means that the driver needs to 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:22.680 be there in case of an emergency, but the driver 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:26.160 can basically not pay attention during other times. Level four 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:29.480 means driver can be totally out of picture, could be unconscious, 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:32.920 could be texting whatever. And that's where the big companies, 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:40.000 the Googles and forwards are focused on, honestly industry, yeah, 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:42.040 whereas we want to be like a very real business. 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:45.440 Len to be real business. Now, when Stephan says he 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:48.320 wants to be a real business, he means that Starsky's 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:50.960 plan is to have the driver only intervened in an emergency. 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:53.920 But unlike say Tesla, which is also going for this 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:57.440 same idea with a driver in the driver's seat, Starsky's 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:00.240 idea is that the driver is going to be someplace else. 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:06.080 We're building hours, so it's not needed person behind the 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:07.760 wheel Because the point for US is to not have 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:11.600 a person behind the wheel. So this is kind of 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:14.840 like the military's use of drone pilots. Yeah, exactly. So 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:18.000 Starsky when they raised their five million dollar funding round, 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:20.200 they did so thanks to a video that they made 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:22.720 where they were remote control driving a truck in a 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:25.960 parking lot and it was making a sort of pseudo delivery. 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:28.080 Their plan, and they want to do this by the 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:30.400 end of the year, is to have a real delivery 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:33.120 with real cargo where they pick up at the port, 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:36.760 drive the whole distance, and then drop off, all using 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:40.040 teleoperation using a remote control driver. And would that be 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:42.880 the first such achievement of its kind as far as 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:45.520 I know, Yes, And and Starsky is actually closer to 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:49.400 this milestone than you might think because trucks, unlike say, cars, 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:51.600 spend most of their time on highways, which is of 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:56.120 course the easiest place to do autonomous driving, right, no pedestrians, 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:59.360 no bikes, no traffic lights. Yeah, and and trucks are 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:02.160 big and heavy, which means that it's a lot easier 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:04.880 to get the sensors on them. And there's also this 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:08.000 safety component. Trucks drive a ton of miles and they're 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:10.920 involved in a lot of fatal accidents. So in theory, 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:12.840 you could eliminate a lot of those if you'd let 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:18.520 a computer do most of the driving. But of course 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:22.240 there's a dark aligning to this potentially silver cloud. Trucking 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:25.280 is a huge sector of the economy, employing millions of people. 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:28.559 Having a computer drive the truck raises the specter of 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:31.880 job losses on an epic scale. So it makes me 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:34.560 want to run for the hills. It makes me want 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:37.520 to hug my kids. I hope they have a future. 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:41.559 That's Ed Witkin, the president of the Transportation Trades Department 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:43.560 for the a f l C i OH. He's basically 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:46.440 a big union muckety muck in the world of trucking. 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:49.120 Um unions including the a f l C i O 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:51.959 and the Teamsters, which are the big well known trucking union, 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:54.880 are warning that this could be really, really bad for 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:58.280 their members, which isn't surprising, right. It taps into an 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:02.040 almost primal fear. Computer come, they take our jobs, right, 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:05.120 But trucking is weird because it's one of those jobs 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:08.839 that a lot of people don't really want. This is me, 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:12.760 I don't take take companies because truck and burgers sixties 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:15.360 seventy hours. Some of the like going on players of 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:17.600 working eighty hours just to trying to pay that drop. 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:21.520 I had a big, stretched out truck, big thing. But 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:23.880 you know I live in this drug staying it for 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:25.600 a couple of days, and you'll know what I'm found about. 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:28.800 That's Jeff Runyons again. The truck driver was behind the 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:31.600 wheel on the drive in Florida. He told me what 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:35.640 being a long haul trucker was like, plus to eat terrible. Yeah, 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:36.920 you know, you get truck stout. I used to go 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:38.360 to memphitt Of all the time. That's why I was 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:41.960 two fifty. Stopped at the drug stops. You got green 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:44.640 fright to make in the cafes. You go to any 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:47.280 truck stop and you'll see everything's fatty. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:50.880 I think companies treat you like they say drivers or 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:55.080 dom a dozen't so. Despite the glorification of the occupation 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:57.240 in the seventies and movies like Smoking in the Band 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:00.920 at bad Food, poor treatment from your employer doesn't sound great. 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:03.120 And the wages are bad too. I mean, people think 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:05.600 of trucking as being this this kind of good paying job, 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:07.920 but the truth is the average trucker makes around forty 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.840 dollars a year, and that easily includes you know, sixty 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:14.840 seventy hours of work every week, so in the end, 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:17.240 you're not making that much better than minimum wage, right, 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:19.800 And that explains why the industry sees such high turnover. 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:22.400 There's a massive labor shortage. And this is what you 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:24.120 hear if you talk to people who are who are 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:27.600 involved in autonomous trucking. The American Trucking Association, the big 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:30.640 trade group, says that around fifty thou trucking jobs are 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:35.600 unfilled at the moment, so there is appetite for more 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:39.040 and more truckers. That's my colleague josh Idolson, who covers 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:43.080 labor relations for Bloomberg. The volume of stuff to move 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:47.120 around the country keeps getting bigger, and the number of 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:51.560 people coming in to the industry to drive and staying 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:54.360 in it is not keeping up, in large part because 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:57.679 so many people leave. Turnover is so high because being 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:00.959 a trucker is pretty much terrible, but in some of 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:03.000 the poorest parts of the country, it's also one of 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:05.840 the only jobs available. One way to look at it 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:08.760 is these are some of the most cherished, mediocre jobs 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:12.959 in the United States. What about military service? Max is 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:16.679 that comparable. It's yeah, Actually, it's it's very comparable. Josh 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:19.679 says that, um, it's the it's people who are who 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:22.800 might enlist in military service that the trucking companies are 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:27.800 competing for. Maybe if they could get the federal law 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:32.440 adjusted so that people who are younger than twenty one 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:36.440 can do interstate trucking, maybe they could get people before 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:39.600 they would otherwise decide to go to the military, for example. 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:42.600 And this is why Starsky and the other Silicon Valley 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:45.079 companies are so interested in the sector. This is a 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:48.640 rare industry where computers could really help what the technology 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:51.200 is and what it will mean for trucking jobs. That's 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:57.400 coming up right after this word from our sponsor. You 0:12:57.440 --> 0:12:59.920 know where you want to be. Red hat has the 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:03.320 broad portfolio of open source technologies to get you there. 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:07.600 Meet your evolving business challenges head on with secure solutions 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:13.120 for the enterprise, including Linux platforms and containers, hybrid cloud infrastructure, 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:19.000 application integration and development, operations management, and beyond. Visit red 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:22.240 hat dot com slash open tech to learn more. Red 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:25.679 hat the open technology to help you realize your vision 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:37.280 before the break. Max, you're explaining that even though the 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:40.600 trucking industry employs millions of people. It's actually facing a 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:43.920 big shortage of workers, and automating the driving process could 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:49.120 directly address this. So let's explain what exactly automation involves. Okay, 0:13:49.120 --> 0:13:51.920 so there are two basic components that the sensors that 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:55.760 are collecting data and the algorithms. So the sensors they 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:58.920 tell the computer where the vehicle is, what's around it, 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:01.920 and then the algorithm crunched the data to figure out 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:04.840 what it should tell the vehicle to do. Companies that 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:08.000 are aiming for the most advanced autonomy use something called LIGHTER, 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:11.160 which stands for Light Detection and Ranging. Of course, it's 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:14.559 somewhat controversial because Uber and Google are now fighting over 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:18.880 some intellectual property around lighter. Star Ski like Tesla uses 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:22.520 raiders and camera. Yeah, it's a lower tech approach and 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:25.440 Stephen laid it out for me during our ride. So 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:28.480 like what we have here in the front are like 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:32.440 to automotive grade really high quality cameras yea with high 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:38.400 body lens feed until our software got it. So while 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:41.640 we drove, Jeff the driver basically kept his hands off 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:44.560 the wheel and and Kevin Keo, a star Ski engineer, 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:47.000 kept an eye on the systems using a laptop and 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:49.840 a tablet that was built into the dashboard. So at 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:53.920 the moment and we have we have mop based roots, 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:58.080 we do, but at the moment it relies heavily on 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:01.040 the landmarks in front. Got it getting some information from 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:04.440 the GPS, but currently and it's getting most of its 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:07.920 information from the laemark so similar it is like teslaut. 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:11.280 So the car is basically watching the road through cameras 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:13.400 and sensors and trying to stay in the lane the 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:16.320 way a real driver would. So Max what happens if 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:20.360 the lane markings are faded or simply aren't there. In general, 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:23.240 interstate highways are pretty good, and Starski is making life 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:25.600 a little easier for itself by saying that the driver, 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:29.680 not the computer, should handle those edge cases. That's that's 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:31.560 part of the same reason why Google has done like 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:34.080 three million miles and is it ready to play anything. 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:36.160 It is because like they're trying to look for all 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:38.880 of those weird curves, all of like the weird times 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:44.600 where U where whatever weird thing happens. Now Google wants 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:48.400 it's a computer to basically handle everything. Yeah, Starsky's thought 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:50.280 is the safety driver will be sitting in a call 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:54.000 center somewhere monitoring maybe five or ten trucks on alarm 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:56.400 will go off if something weird happens, and then he'll 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:59.360 immediately seize the wheel and take control. Let's hope the 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:03.160 wireless vous is reliable. How how does that work? Starsky 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:06.680 doesn't want to say exactly how they're transmitting data, but 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:11.080 basically they're controlling the truck wirelessly by remote control. Right now, 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:13.280 the system looks a bit like you what you'd have 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:15.760 if you were really into video games. There's a steering 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:18.760 wheel and then three screens, and the driver just sits 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:20.560 there and sort of drives like in a video game. 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:22.720 But the idea is that most of the time the 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:28.720 computer is driving itself. Now, let's go back to the beginning. 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:31.600 You're in one of these trucks in Florida. You're on 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:34.360 a bed in the back, and and the wind is 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:38.640 blowing causing the truck to sway and the computer to overcorrect. Right, 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:41.440 we were hauling a lot of weight on this particular day. 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:44.360 It was It was a shipping container which is been 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:47.080 out of stainless steel. It's heavier than the standard illuminum 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:50.760 boxes that Starsky had been testing before, and that proved 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:59.440 slightly problematic. Here's gonna be something new right here. This, Yeah, 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:01.360 now this curve during the week we were taking a 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:07.720 point container, we'll see a new experiment. Basically, we're getting 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:09.720 pushed by the wind and the computer a bit like 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:12.720 a human driver was struggling to figure out exactly just 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:14.920 how hard how to respond, just how hard to turn 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:18.360 that wheel? Max. You deserve hazard pay for this? Why 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:20.840 why were they doing this test in Florida. So a 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:23.439 bunch of states are trying to regulate driverless cars, but 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:28.680 Florida is really really ridiculously relaxed about this industry. You 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:32.040 don't need a special permit or any special insurance to 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:34.240 to drive a driverless car in Florida, and you don't 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:36.840 even need a human driver behind the wheel as long 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:45.120 as somebody somewhere is in control of the car. Now 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:47.359 here's the most interesting part. It gives us a peek 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:50.240 at the future. Maybe robots won't take all our jobs, 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:53.000 but it's likely that they replace many jobs, including what 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:55.560 we think of as blue collar jobs that involve manage 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:58.560 a computer. So I think like humans and technology are 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:00.480 probably going to be better than either want to. Yeah, 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:05.560 probably forever. That's Stephan again, the stars Key CEO. Stars 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:09.840 Keep brings together these two unlikely groups rod En m 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:14.640 Gene seven dollar lotts, Yeah, mixed with truck drivers who 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:17.320 some of them live in trailers, many of them like 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:21.760 they never went to college. Self driving engineers like Kevin Kyo, 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:24.960 the engineer who works for Starsky, can make millions, even 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:28.200 tens of millions at companies like Google. Truckers are basically 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:32.119 treated as disposable by their employers. Were we were straddling 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:34.439 people who thought that Bernie didn't go far enough and 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:37.480 people who didn't think that Trump went far enough. Stephan 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:40.320 argues that this is going to be really good for truckers, 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:42.400 which I also heard from Jeff who was our driver 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:46.000 for the day. Some people who are negative, Yeah, and 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:49.440 then some are really interested in attack behind him. Yeah. 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:51.159 And then you tell them about how you're gonna make 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:53.600 it so they have forty hour weeks that seven the 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:56.480 hours the weekend have, you know, instead of me and 0:18:56.560 --> 0:19:00.080 gone all the time. They can make same amount of money. 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:03.200 But Jeff, a star Sky driver, isn't exactly an objective 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:05.959 source here, is he? No, And it's a real threat 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:09.480 that many drivers will get left behind. That's what one driver, 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:14.199 Tom George told my colleague Josh. Even where they're not 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:19.200 a driver shortage, there would certainly be technology trying to 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:23.439 to edge into uh, supplanting a driver. I've been seeing 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:32.080 uh trucking, uh just truck manufacturing developing into a you 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:34.960 know what I always called trying to engineer the driver 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:41.159 out of the truck. So Max, it's hard to know 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:43.880 what the long term impact of artificial intelligence is going 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:46.600 to mean for all of us, not just truckers, right right, 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:48.560 and and there are there are a few different schools 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:50.840 of thought, which I'll break down for you quickly. The 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:54.959 first is basically that advances in robotics artificial intelligence are 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:58.560 going to make us more productive, make us superhumans, and 0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:00.240 and those of us who lose our jobs going to 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:04.040 get even better, more creative, more fulfilling jobs. The second 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:06.879 idea school of thought is that technology is going to 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:09.640 kill so many jobs that's going to create this permanent 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:11.679 underclass where where you have a bunch of people who 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:14.120 can't find anything. And the third school of thought says 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:17.160 this is all hype, don't pay any attention to it. Yeah, 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:20.160 I've also noticed the strain of optimism and Silicon Valley 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.720 that says the job destruction will be real, but this 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:26.080 this is a natural cycle of the economy, and that 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:28.520 it will evolve a new work that we haven't yet 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:31.680 imagined will kind of take care of the disruption, right. 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:34.359 And I think it's important to remember that that for 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:36.920 most of the country, this sort of Silicon value way 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:39.280 of thinking is not how they see it. They see 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:43.200 this as basically science fiction. Just the other day, Transportation 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:46.920 Secretary Lane Chow told reporters that explaining self driving technology 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:49.440 of the public would be one of the biggest hurdles 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:52.040 in terms of getting people to adopt it. And even 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:54.840 truckers like Tom George, who we just heard from, are 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:57.359 convinced they'll be able to drive trucks better than a 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:00.960 computer for some time to come. That's gonna be really, 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:06.439 really hard for automation to take over because there's so 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:09.520 much interaction that the driver has to be a part 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:14.000 of that can't be automated by a computer. So who's 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:16.480 going to notice that a strap is loose on your 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:19.000 load while you're driving down the road. I don't know 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:22.160 that the computer is going to be able to first 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:24.600 bull notice it. And second of all, how are they 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:26.480 going to just do it? What are they gonna do? 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:30.040 And Tom's not wrong. It's true that there are thousands 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:33.880 of rare cases, those edge cases, those emergencies where computers 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:36.680 don't work very well and they may not work well 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:39.720 for a long time. Yeah, but that doesn't mean it's 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:41.399 going to take a long time to get to that 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:43.959 hybridge stage. And Starsky is a version of this with 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:47.119 remote control. But there are others. Auto and another driverless 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:50.480 trucking startup called Embark talk about having drivers in the 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:53.520 cabs but allowing them to sleep. Peloton, which is another 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:57.000 Silicon Valley trucking startup, has a convoy style approach where 0:21:57.040 --> 0:21:58.919 you could imagine a big line of trucks with one 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:02.200 driver just in the refront. But the bottom line is 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:04.879 that all of these companies, all of them are trying 0:22:04.920 --> 0:22:08.320 to make trucking require fewer workers. So for now, what's 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:12.040 next for Starsky? So what they're trying to do is 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:14.480 have this big test on the highway where they're going 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:18.240 to try to drive a whole uh delivery without having 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:20.520 a human in the car. And I think probably they'll 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:23.040 they'll try to raise some more money. Meanwhile, I guess 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:25.720