With all the hoo-har surrounding the breaking up of the taxi licensing cartel, Australia is being left behind. While we’re still arguing about who gets to drive a taxi, other parts of the world are doing away with the drivers altogether.
According to the Chinese manufacturer ehang, Dubai will have their pilotless drones available to the public this year:
The United Arab Emirates city of Dubai is set to become the world’s first to allow passenger-carrying drone taxis, according to an announcement Wednesday from the Chinese manufacturer of the vehicles.
Chinese media group Caixin says that Guangzhou-based EHang has received an order from Dubai for its 184 model, which can carry one person and a small suitcase with a combined weight of 117 kg.
Passengers reportedly do not control the drones but simply select their destination, at which point a command center on the ground pilots the aerial vehicles, which have a peak altitude of 3.5 km, a top speed of 160 km/h, and can travel for 50 km (around half an hour) on a single charge.
The Chinese drones are due to be delivered in July and are said to be part of a grand strategy that aims to see a quarter of all Dubai’s traffic become driverless by 2030.
The Luddites of today (including Bill Gates) will protest that this driverless technology will put people out of a job and should be taxed! Well they’re half right… In the short term there will be people who will lose their jobs because of the automation of driving. But like all automation in the past, the result will be reduced cost of living and higher quality of life for all.
Here’s an incomplete list in no particular order of past innovations which have put people out of work, but increased wealth and living standards for all:
- Oxen pulled plow. Put a lot of hoe-bearing peons out of work.
- The Wheel. Particularly when paired with the oxen, reduced the need for 100 slaves with baskets on their heads down to a driver and some cattle hands.
- The sail. Put thousands of rowers out of a job.
- The steam engine. Put thousands of sail-makers out of a job.
- The diesel engine. Put thousands of coal-shovelers out of a job.
- Cement. Put thousands of Quarry workers out of a job.
- The sewing machine. Put thousands of seamstresses out of a job.
- The printing press. Put thousands of scribes out of a job.
- The personal computer. Put thousands of admin workers out of a job.
And now:
- The Drone. Put thousands of drivers out of a job.
Get it now? All of the above innovations cost jobs, but made us richer. Innovation makes us richer because it makes it cheaper to do / make something, and as a result our dollars can buy / do more stuff so our quality of life goes up.
At the current pace of innovation each and every one of us can expect our industry to be severely disrupted and / or become obsolete at least once if not twice in our lifetimes. And it’s up to each of us to anticipate, prepare, and adapt, as those challenges come our way.
Fighting against Uber, fighting against drones, fighting against any money or time saving innovations on the basis that it will ‘hurt jobs’, is a really bad idea. It means you’re fighting against all the people who will be benefited by the reductions in the cost of living, and most of all you’re fighting to keep the poor, poor.
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