Profile For Brett Aquila

Earlier in the conversation I said this:

I use AI daily. I build AI-driven apps. I can tell you from quite a bit of experience that AI will give you graduate-level science in one paragraph, but then screw up 3rd-grade level facts in the next. It is WILDLY unpredictable, even in many of the simplest tasks. You must not take your eyes off it, even for a moment.

Just now, I was trying to determine how many days it is from sept 11, 2001 to may 15, 2025.

Grok (x.com) said it's 5,013 days. The correct answer is 8,647 days.

I asked Grok how he derived it and he gave me a long explanation of the math, which was obviously wrong. I told him the answer was wrong and asked him why that happened. He said he miscalculated and the correct answer is 5,002 days. He gave an explanation longer than a typical blog article as to why the new number is correct.

To be fair, Gemini (Google) and ChatGPT (OpenAI) both got it correct.

But Elon Musk (owner of Grok) touts his robots, self-driving taxis, and Grok as world-changing technologies ready for prime time. None of them are anywhere near the claims he makes.

I love Elon and I think he's critically important to our future, but like all fabulously wealthy business owners, he's a marketing dynamo who will say anything to build a following and promote his products. Take nothing he says at face value if he stands to profit from it somehow.

Do not trust AI. Use it, but never blindly trust it. Also, be aware of who creates the one you're using because every AI has its own built-in prejudices. I trust Elon more than I do Google or OpenAI, but right now his AI is trailing the others.

TRUMP, once again, kickin' azzes, 'n takin' names

He sure is! This term is off to a glorious start.

Dont get me wrong but was Biden president in 2016?

Don't get me wrong, but your TDS is interfering with your reading comprehension. Read better.

I'm not really going to worry about self-driving trucks until the lane departure and collision alerts on my truck can tell what is and what isn't a concern.

It's almost impossible to believe that here we are in 2025, and trucks still have the same unreliable, primitive object detection systems that regularly give false alarms. You guys know I started driving in '93, and from the start, that garbage beeped in my ears all day long.

Guardrails, bridges, and everything else set that thing off. I can't remember a single time in my career when a safety device alerted me to something I was unaware of.

Clearly, tech companies' marketing and money-raising departments rely on people not noticing that nothing has changed in 30 years, even though, according to them, we're always "on the cusp of the final breakthrough. "

Funny you mentioned this, I literally saw one today mowing the large empty field at the mall. It got my attention because it has a bunch of flashing lights on it, and I was like "oh there is nobody riding that one".

They can use GPS to guide farm tractors and mowers in fields, but object detection and terrain detection are a problem. If you're in a big, open field like a cornfield or a football field, it's no problem. But if they put that tractor in a suburban yard, you'll have a lot of repair work to do. It can't do that kind of thing.

Same with these "self-driving trucks" that can only go from one Interstate exit to another. It's funny how they never mention self-driving trucks navigating major cities. It seems to me we could have developed a strong freight train network if we wanted to move a ton of goods in a straight line long distances without using many people. Developing self-driving trucks seems like an awful long and expensive way to accomplish that.

I have a couple of drones. They have object detection. It works great, until it flies straight into a tree for no apparent reason (ask me how I know)

but the harsh reality is that, even McDonalds still needs humans behind the counter in addition to the self service ordering terminals. I feel like if burger flippers haven't been replaced yet, we still have a long way.

I agree wholeheartedly.

For instance, they want self-driving vehicles, right? How about self-driving lawnmowers or garbage cans first? Prove you can build garbage cans that can drive themselves to the curb and return when empty. Then, prove you can consistently mow any lawn safely and efficiently, while the kids and pets are running around, and then we'll begin the conversation about cars and trucks.

I use AI daily. I build AI-driven apps. I can tell you from quite a bit of experience that AI will give you graduate-level science in one paragraph, but then screw up 3rd-grade level facts in the next. It is WILDLY unpredictable, even in many of the simplest tasks. You must not take your eyes off it, even for a moment.

I can't tell you how often I'm yelling at the screen, "How on EARTH could you screw that up? How could you possibly get that wrong????"

For instance, a few months ago I presented a partial list of U.S. state abbreviations and asked Grok (x.com), Gemini (Google), and ChatGPT (OpenAI) to complete the list. I gave each of them three tries, and none got it right. They would leave out states every time.

Yet ask them to explain quantum computing and they'll give you a 30-minute PhD dissertation.

Wildly unpredictable. That's not so good for decision-making when piloting an 80,000-pound truck.

We are still a long way from this tech being threatening in any way.

That's for sure! I always bring up an article I wrote back in 2017:

Self Driving Trucks Are Not Coming Anytime Soon

It's been eight years since I wrote that article, and I wrote it at the time because people were talking as if we were just about there. I knew we weren't even close.

Three years after writing that article, I went to a business convention in Florida put on by a very famous person. This was in January 2020. The man stood in front of a huge audience and exclaimed, with fantastic confidence, "With self-driving trucks, there will be no truck drivers in five years!"

I know he didn't mean it literally when he said there would be no truck drivers, but it's been 5 1/2 years since he said that, and not one single driver was replaced by self-driving vehicles, and in fact, there are more truck drivers on the road today than there were five years ago.

However, another thing I've warned about for years was the possibility of bringing in immigrants to take our jobs, and that has happened in a big way over the past few years. Hopefully, that trend will reverse, but it never did for other industries like farming, construction, and landscaping. Only time will tell.

Self-driving trucks will not hurt truck driver pay or recruitment for many years, if ever at the pace they're going. However, not the same can not be said for immigrants. It has had an effect, and will for the foreseeable future.

I feel like i was forced to leave. I am trying very hard to not be bitter.

Wow, it's unexpected that you're leaving Prime, yet at the same time, it's not surprising.

The problem in trucking is that there are only so many advantages that a *very* experienced driver like yourself can bring to the table. At some point, the pay raises and perks they have to keep giving you aren't worth it anymore. That's why the largest carriers have a disproportionate number of inexperienced drivers relative to old-timers. Drivers with enough experience can get the job done just as well, but at a lower rate.

For example, a driver with 6 months of experience already knows enough to be mostly safe and moderately productive. A driver with 12+ months is pretty much there. At that point, it's more a matter of motivation than experience. Either you want to turn big miles or you don't. Once you have a year in the industry, getting more experience won't contribute much to your performance.

So, it's a job where a low-to-intermediate amount of experience is usually good enough to produce master results.

For contrast, sports are often a very different matter. Experience as a quarterback in the NFL is priceless because you will get noticeably better even after many years of NFL experience. Tom Brady, after 12 years in the NFL, was better than Tom Brady after 8 years. But for truck drivers, that isn't the case.

You already know five people working at the company you'll be working for, so hopefully, they have a different approach toward highly-experienced drivers due to a different business model or perspective. But obviously, Prime's entire system is geared toward taking entry-level drivers and making them proficient. They're looking for that sweet spot where drivers have enough experience to perform at a high level, but still not enough to demand the highest wages and perks.

You're just too damn good for em at this point, Kearsey! You've outgrown the nest.

I look forward to hearing about your new adventure and what it's like working for a new company for the first time in your career.

It says here “we don’t recommend community colleges and local training” I don’t agree with that. A good driver can come from anywhere it all comes down to if the individual commits themselves to learning.

We don't recommend community colleges or private training, but we didn't say we forbid them or that you can't succeed that way. There is a preferred way of doing things, which for almost everyone is paid training, and there are less preferred ways, which still work most of the time.

A lot of good information in here, but some stuff that’s just plain wrong.

Oh, this should be good. Go for it, friend. School us veterans with your two years of deep knowledge. What did we get wrong?

WOW, what a shocking revelation for the trucking industry. I'm floored by what the last administration did and the recruiting nightmare that's about to hit the trucking industry in the coming months. It could be a massive crisis.

Here is a summary of an article by Zerohedge titled, Biden Handed Out CDLs Like Candy... Now US Highways Are A Public & National Security Nightmare:

The U.S. trucking industry has faced a dramatic shift over the past decade, driven by policy changes that loosened driver standards and flooded the market with migrant truckers, culminating in rising safety risks and economic strain for American drivers.

• In 2016, a federal memorandum waived enforcement of English proficiency requirements for CDLs, loosening standards for truck drivers.
• In 2021, the Biden administration introduced the “Trucking Action Plan” to address a claimed driver shortage, initially targeting veterans, women, and minorities.
• By 2022, the Biden administration boasted adding 876,000 new drivers—doubling the usual annual rate—shifting the plan’s focus to issuing non-domicile CDLs to refugees and migrants.
• Between 2022 and 2025, the industry gained over 300,000 drivers despite over 100,000 small and mid-sized U.S. carriers going bankrupt in an ongoing downturn.
• Since 2016, truck-involved incidents and fatalities have steadily risen, a trend ATU correlates with the influx of minimally vetted migrant drivers.
• Weeks ago, a migrant driver with limited English, holding a non-domicile CDL, caused a deadly crash in Austin, Texas, killing 5 and injuring 11, spotlighting safety risks.
• ATU suspects NGOs like Texas-based Global Impact Initiative have aided migrants in obtaining CDLs, raising national security concerns (e.g., truck attacks like Nice, France).
• In 2025, with Trump back in office and English now the official U.S. language, calls emerge for a task force to reverse Biden’s policies, reinstate language rules, and empower states to enforce penalties for non-compliant drivers.

Things are about to change dramatically in this industry. The demand for drivers over the past two years has gone nearly to zero, something I haven't experience in almost 20 years of running this website, including the Great Recession of 2008. Now I know why no one needs drivers. Man, that is about to change.