So for the 2 hours, realize that the reason it’s not zero is there is a ‘residual’ human labor input where currently shipping control systems are not robust enough to replace the human. To summarize the problem (it’s the same problem repeated everywhere): there is a near infinite number of rare ‘edge cases’ that a tractor can experience. Current computer software is not feasible to engineer for all the edge cases, so the tractor has an autopilot that handles the 90-99% or so ‘main happy case’ of driving the tractor, and the person onboard watching netflix has to be ready to take over when it hits an edge.
This is pretty much the same problem repeated for packing boxes at Amazon and all the rest. Too many varied items on the shelves. (the ‘picking’ problem). Or for manufacturing the goods that are being shipped—robots can make the injection molded main pieces, and be hand set up for commonly made goods, but there are all these little ‘edge’ cases where a factory worker has to do some of the steps by hand, making the human labor input more than zero.
So for the 2 hours, realize that the reason it’s not zero is there is a ‘residual’ human labor input where currently shipping control systems are not robust enough to replace the human. To summarize the problem (it’s the same problem repeated everywhere): there is a near infinite number of rare ‘edge cases’ that a tractor can experience. Current computer software is not feasible to engineer for all the edge cases, so the tractor has an autopilot that handles the 90-99% or so ‘main happy case’ of driving the tractor, and the person onboard watching netflix has to be ready to take over when it hits an edge.
This is pretty much the same problem repeated for packing boxes at Amazon and all the rest. Too many varied items on the shelves. (the ‘picking’ problem). Or for manufacturing the goods that are being shipped—robots can make the injection molded main pieces, and be hand set up for commonly made goods, but there are all these little ‘edge’ cases where a factory worker has to do some of the steps by hand, making the human labor input more than zero.