Thread

1. zug_zug · 1790775034 · focus · HN ↗

   And my great great grandpa thought horses would lose all their jobs to cars. And they all did and it was never the same again.

   There’s no quick answers, but intuitively I think we all get that the % of jobs not doable by AI and robotics approaches 0 over time.

   1. skybrian · 1790776333 · focus · HN ↗

      In the long run, we’re all dead anyway. (Unless something drastic changes.) That means how long it will take for robots to be practical matters. We don’t know how long it will be, but driverless cars have been coming for 15 years now and they’re still unavailable in most places.

      People are more adaptable than horses and tech solutions usually require people to do some of the work. Dishwashers need loading and unloading. My robot vacuum still needs maintenance. Self-checkout means you do the scanning.

      Amazon wants to get into drone delivery and there are cases where that might work, but the way news articles describe it, it’s not going to get a package onto my porch.

      1. sashank_1509 · 1790793529 · focus · HN ↗

         You seem to be living under a rock. Yes driverless cars started in 2009, but in 2026 it is very much here. Waymo recently crossed a milestone of more 500k trips I think, we will have millions of driverless cars in the coming years (we’re at 10k right now)

         1. bluGill · 1790793827 · focus · HN ↗

            Waymo still doesn't serve my city. We get too much snow/ice in winter and so they are slow to expand here.

            1. chasd00 · 1790795377 · focus · HN ↗

               There's always exceptions. To not beat a dead horse(hah!) in Texas you can still find people on horseback in the drive through line at Starbucks from time to time.

               1. bluGill · 1790797708 · focus · HN ↗

                  The cities Waymo serves are the exception even in the US, and worldwide it is even more an exception.

                  1. fragmede · 1790798294 · focus · HN ↗

                     I give them til 2030 for that to become false in the US, maybe 2040 for the entire rest of the world.
            2. asdff · 1790804072 · focus · HN ↗

               For a while waymo didn't even serve the hillier parts of where they were deployed. These roads are challenging conditions for even a human rideshare driver, when you are down to about a cars width of winding road, with a moving truck trying to pass in front of you, and a dump truck trying to move behind you, cars increasingly piling on either end, no way to turn around or back out, everyone increasingly honking and cussing as if that would lubricate things. It is kind of hilarious in a way seeing how quickly things effectively blow up in those street conditions with just the perfect storm of two slightly larger vehicles passing at once.

               Now you can imagine a waymo in this mix how it would just be on its knees in a situation like that. How is a waymo to interpret "fucking move already you dumb fuck" into any sort of meaningful instruction?

               I'm reminded of that story about activists in SF requesting a dozen waymos at once at some one way street and creating a localized denial of service attack essentially.

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