Fariborz Ghadar
As automation continues to enter into more aspects of daily life, consequences include the displacement of human workers.
We've seen machines take over manufacturing jobs as more industries rely on technology.
Now, the wave is heading toward America's trucking industry, as automation in vehicles potentially threatens anywhere from 80 to 100 percent of America's 1.6 million truck driving jobs, according to White House estimates.
Fariborz Ghadar (PennLive file)
Truck driving is the most common occupation in over half of the states in the country, giving a real urgency to the need to prepare for this disruption. With the right resources, it can be done.
While automation could replace humans inside the trucks, human workers will still be needed for a variety of jobs involving the oversight, protection, and improvement of the technology in their vehicles.
More funding given to education programs for truck drivers now will pay off in the future.
Properly funded training offers new possibilities to these drivers and educates an entire sector of the American workforce with computer skills that could be easily translated to technology fields beyond vehicular automation.
If we fail these drivers and the majority aren't able to retire or quickly find new work, this could lead to a large group of embittered, unemployed citizens.
Thankfully, the automation of trucks doesn't have to have the same sudden negative side effects as manufacturing because there is still time to prepare the truck driving industry to make the transition.
Required improvements to the technology and reluctance of the general public to accept automated vehicles gives truck drivers approximately until 2040 to develop new skill sets that would transition well with the automation of their trucks.
As automated trucks are slowly introduced to everyday society, there will still need to be workers inside the trucks to monitor the truck and take control of the vehicle if something goes wrong with the software.
These supervising roles will only be temporary though, giving truck drivers more time for their transition, but not permanent job stability.
This is where we can look to jobs in information and computer sciences to be the answer.
The software needed for these automated trucks will need to be properly trained and debugged before being introduced, and as the Executive Office of the President states in its 2016 report "Artificial Intelligence-Automation-Economy", machines are only as capable as the data behind them.
Truck drivers trained to collect data on different routes, road conditions, and driving scenarios could transition from driving the wheel to programming the wheel itself.
There will also be the need to protect the technology driving American goods, requiring new jobs in the realm of cybersecurity. Identifying these potential jobs is actually straightforward.
The difficulty arises in the production of programs that will train truck drivers to learn computer programming languages and give them an adequate knowledge of computer engineering. While some truck drivers could seek individual education, to avoid leaving a mass of drivers without work would require a national push to give these drivers the skills to work with the technology replacing them.
However, there can be no push without funds to support it. In "Artificial Intelligence-Automation-Economy", it was found that most OECD member countries besides the U.S. spend .6 percent of GDP on worker and labor related policies while the U.S. spends only .1 percent on such issues.
If we are to squarely face the consequences of technological integration, we must allocate the resources that give a vital, diligent workforce a true pathway to success.
Fariborz Ghadar is the William A. Schreyer Professor of Global Management, Policies and Planning and Director of the Center for Global Business Studies at Penn State's Smeal College of Business.