The Chamber of Progress, which bills itself as “a new tech industry coalition devoted to a progressive society,” has a report out about autonomous vehicles and jobs.
There is a long list of “key findings,” which I boil down to:
- AVs will create a wide range of jobs, from entry-level support staff to high-skill researchers.
- AV jobs will be nationwide
- Job displacement due to AVs will be gradual
It’s a trade group, so of course take the conclusions with a grain of salt. But they seem plausible to me. Most obviously, AV rollout has already been gradual (too gradual), so it stands to reason that job displacement will be very gradual, as well. Professional human drivers will continue to have jobs for many decades.
I found the map in the report interesting. There are AV clusters in a lot of places you’d expect – Silicon Valley, Detroit, Phoenix. Also, though, a lot of AV companies and operations in places I wouldn’t expect – Salt Lake City, Washington, DC, somewhere in northern Minnesota, New Orleans, Buffalo.
These things have a way of spreading out to surprising places.
David Silver 