In 10 to 15 years, self-driving cars will be a reality in our world. It means that, people transportation and goods transportation will be done by those self-driving cars and trucks. The positive consequences are numerous and will be highlighted by manufacturers and service providers, like the possibility to order your vehicle from your phone and your computer. We will be able to remove traffic lights, and there will be no more (or less) traffic jam, less car accident…
We have seen with the emergence of Uber and other apps that can help you to order a car with chauffeur that the market was disrupt heavily. Imagine just one second that the car you will order with Uber will be self-driving ones in a few years from now.
In one article published on Medium, Tanay Jaipuria, questioned the decisions that will be made when it will come to the programmation on those robots. Isaac Asimov covered a lot of complex cases in his novels, now it’s reality…
One of the consequence of those self-driving cars will be unemployment of millions of people that are taxi or truck drivers. It’s not so easy to find the exact number of truck drivers in the world. More that 3.5 million in the US, so I suppose that there are more in Europe and Asia, as the number of truck registrations is 50% higher in those areas.
Millions of unemployed people that will not so easily find a new activity.
We can say (or think) that it’s not our fault or our responsibility. I believe that we should care about this problem and put in place an unconditional basic income for every people that will cover the basic needs, and give time to people to find an activity that can suit them.
A basic income is an income unconditionally granted to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement. More information can be found here.