One of the most common careers in the US is a truck driver. About 3.5 million people depend on these jobs for their livelihood.

Okay, but what the heck does this have to do with shovels and spoons?

Patience, young grasshopper. I’ll get there.

With a high degree of confidence, I'd venture to guess that twenty years from now, 95%+ of these truck driving jobs won’t exist; self-driving trucks will replace them. It’s my prediction we’ll start to see this change to self-driving trucks within five years, and then we will see a complete shift over the following fifteen years.

“3.5 million people will be out of work, we must stop this madness!”

Let’s hold off on jumping to this conclusion.

Shovels and Spoons

A while back I saw a Youtube video with an old speech from Milton Friedman. He told the following story:

I went to China where a handful of government bureaucrats showed me some of their various undertakings. One, in particular, was a canal-building project. We got to the site and I couldn’t help but notice the lack of heavy machinery.

I said to the bureaucrat: “Why are the workers digging with shovels? Where are all the machines?”

He replied: “You don’t understand Mr. Friedman, this is a job-creation project!”

I said: “Oh, I thought you wanted to build a canal...If it’s jobs you want, why don’t you take away their shovels and give them spoons?”

The point is, job creation doesn’t matter. What matters is wealth creation. The canal creates wealth by improving the efficiency of commerce. Many people say they want jobs, but they don’t actually want jobs. They want the wealth that the job creates for them.

The seen vs. the unseen

When you see 3.5 million people losing their jobs to technology, it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that it’s a bad thing. However, there’s the seen (3.5 million jobs lost) and there’s the unseen (all the benefits that come with it).

When trucks become automated, they’ll do so for one reason: because all things considered, it’s cheaper.

Self-driving trucks don’t fall asleep at the wheel. They don’t take unforeseen breaks to go home and see their family, resulting in delays for delivered goods. They don’t have to sleep for eight hours each day at a rest stop. They don’t require a wage. They won’t sue you for harassment or discrimination. They don’t have to be paid overtime or time and a half on holidays. They don’t complain about their route being too long, too short, or to a undesired destination. They come to work and do their job. Any time of day or night.

When it becomes less expensive to transport goods, said goods become cheaper than they would’ve been otherwise. These lower prices improve everybody’s standard of living.

What will happen to the truck drivers?

Before we get to the truck drivers, let’s roll the clock back 200 years - before the industrial revolution. There was virtually no unemployment. That sounds great, right? Well...Everyone had a job - most doing physically demanding labor, working sixteen-hour days, and doing so 6 or 7 days a week.

The early 1800s was a time when 80%+ of the population worked in agriculture. Compared to today’s puny 2%. Why were such an enormous number of people working in agriculture? Because growing food was so inefficient that 80%+ is the amount of labor it took to feed the entire population. Today, with just 2% of the people in agriculture, we can feed the entire population thanks to advancements in technology, knowledge, and processes.

So what happened to the other 78%+ percent? Are they unemployed because a machine replaced them? Of course not. Advancements in technology helped make food more abundant, which freed up the labor of those farmers to make other products and provide alternative services.

Just because truck drivers are replaced by automation, doesn’t mean they won’t have a job. There are always things that need to be accomplished in a society. The market will create monetary incentives for their labor to be deployed to more urgently demanded fields of work.

What does this mean for society?

Anything that makes us humans more efficient is a good thing. There may be short term pain for individuals who have to find a new career path. But if we want people as a whole to realize an increased standard of living, we must embrace technologies and ideas that make us more efficient. Before jumping to conclusions, think about the unseen effects. Don’t fall into the idea trap of replacing shovels with spoons.