Uber創辦人Travis Kalanick談自動駕駛汽車趨勢：「自動汽車會創造更多的就業機會。」

By cherry.liu on 24 Aug 2016

Uber創辦人Travis Kalanick日前接受外媒訪問，大談對自動汽車的看法。他明確指出，Uber需要在發展自動駕駛汽車上加快手腳，不然就會面對來自Google和其他對手所帶來的存在危機。

Photo from Wikipedia

談到自動汽車，很多人對它的看法就是剝奪司機們的存活方式。雖然Uber的工程總監在接受外媒Bloomberg訪問時曾指出自動汽車的目的就是要讓人類摒除汽車司機，但Kalanick卻在另一訪問中否認自動汽車會淘汰人類司機一說。他指出，雖然以人類駕駛的旅程次數將會逐漸降低，但所需要的人手卻會不斷增加。以三藩市為例，Uber目前大約有3萬名活躍的司機。假設Uber的三藩市車隊有100萬輛車，你仍然需要一個以人力驅動的平台或人機混合的平台，背後原因就是自動駕駛汽車不可能處理所有情況。即使最後沒有那麽多自動汽車，Kalanick仍然期望會有5至10萬的人類司機去輔助這個自動汽車網絡。

If you're talking about a city like San Francisco or the Bay Area generally, we have, like, 30,000 active drivers. We are going to go from 30,000 to, let's say, hypothetically, a million cars, right? But when you go to a million cars, you're still going to need a human-driven parallel, or hybrid. And the reason why is because there are just places that autonomous cars are just not going to be able to go or conditions they're not going to be able to handle. And even though it is going to be a smaller percentage of the whole, I can imagine 50,000 to 100,000 drivers, human drivers, alongside a million-car network. So I don't think the number of human drivers will go down anytime soon.

如果你在談像三藩市或沿岸地區的城市的話，一般來說我們有大約3萬名活躍司機。假設我們將由3萬架汽車上到100萬架，對吧？但當你的數目上升至100萬輛汽車時，你仍然需要一個以人手驅動的系統，又或是一個人機混合的。而原因就是有些地方自動汽車根本沒可能去到的，又或者它們根本不能處理某些情況。即使從大局來看這比例是比較少的，但我可以想像在一個一百萬架自動車的交通網絡内有5至10萬的司機，人類司機。所以我不認爲人類司機的數量會在不久的將來下跌。

Photo from Uber

Kalanick又表示，自動汽車的出現只會開拓新的就業機會如維修相關工作和現時沒有需要所以暫時沒人做的工作。他舉出了電話接綫生的例子，指出科技發展很多時候都意味著某些專業的消失。而當被問及是否把自動汽車看成另類的開拓就業機會時，Kalanick直認不諱。

And at the same time, remember, technology moves forward, we are talking about a million lives a year being saved. You know there was once a time you made a phone call and there was a person that, the operator, had to do switching, right? Or there were literally hundreds of thousands of people employed to build telephone booths. And then cellphones came and it is a beautiful thing, but then that created a whole new industry and all new kinds of jobs.

與此同時，記住科技會向前走，而我們正在談每年拯救了數以百萬計的生命。你知道以前每打一次電話時，接綫生就要負責接駁電話嗎？又如以前那些數以千百計建造電話亭的工人。然後手機出現了，而它亦是一個美好的東西，但同時也開創了一個全新的行業和各式各樣的新職業。

Photo from Uber

他續稱，Uber的出現都是因爲有手機的出現。因為手機的出現，數以百萬年計的人能每天賺取收入。

Uber exists because of mobile telephones. And what did we do with that? Well, there are millions of people that make an income every day because of it. And that happened in six years. It couldn't have been predicted. So what's next? So in that way, I guess maybe I am a technology optimist, but I have a lot of good data on my side.

Uber之所以存在是因爲手提電話。而我們利用手提電話做了什麽？數以百萬的人因爲手提電話而每天賺取收入。這更是在六年内發生的事。這是沒有人能預測到。那麽下一步是什麽呢？從這個方向來看，我猜我也許是一個對科技保持樂觀的人，但我那邊擁有了很多很好的數據。