Technology driven disruption so common it will soon be normal

(Disruption driven by technology is to become so common it will soon be normal.

Just one of those technologies, the driverless car, which is really the compilation of many technologies, will alter many things about how we live and how we relate to others in our communities.

The challenge is not the driverless car, rather how we respond to it and how integrate the changes it brings into our lifestyles – Robert McLean.)

Driverless vehicles are a "disruptive'
technology that will soon become the norm.

The economic benefits of self-driving vehicles are widely touted: car crashes will be virtually eliminated, slashing health-care costs, while less time will be wasted idling in traffic, boosting worker productivity and reducing fuel consumption.

But there’s another side to the equation: hundreds of thousands of driving-related jobs could be lost, not to mention all the health-care professionals, insurance agents and even lawyers whose work is connected to the driving economy.

The Conference Board of Canada in a report published last year estimated that the economic benefits from automated vehicles could be more than $65 billion annually, the result of a significant decline in collisions, congestion and fuel consumption, plus more free time for commuters.

“But we also know there will be job losses,” said Julia Markovich, senior research associate at the Conference Board’s Centre for Transportation and Infrastructure. “Not just in the most obvious way in terms of driving-based occupations that will be threatened, but also wider ripple effects that are expected throughout the labour market. This is something we’re still trying to get a handle on.”

David Bradley, CEO of the Canadian Trucking Alliance, said there are about 300,000 truck drivers in Canada, and that doesn’t include all the other driving-based professions — cabbies, bus drivers, even valets — who will find themselves unemployed if vehicles can pilot themselves.

Job losses are already happening in some industries. For example, Suncor Energy Inc. last year announced that it would buy autonomous trucks from Komatsu Ltd. for its oilsands operations. Chief financial officer Alister Cowan said the trucks would allow the company to cut 800 truck-operator jobs “by the end of the decade.”

Read the National Post story - “Driverless vehicles are going to change our world, but at what cost?”