The jobs that physical AI will replace—long-haul trucking, mining, offshore oil—are jobs nobody wants: physically punishing, dangerous, and family-destructive, with labor shortages already present today.
The claim that physical AI will destroy desirable jobs is wrong—these jobs (long-haul trucking, mining) are already facing severe labor shortages because they are dangerous, unhealthy, and keep workers away from family for days or weeks at a time. ✦ AI generated
Speaker 2 (Peter Ludwig — co-founder/CTO of Applied Intuition) · a16z Podcast · 2026-07-21 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 45:20
“Well, you know, the fear for a long time has been for trucking for some reason triggers the press's imagination on apocalyptic levels of job loss.”
There's not enough truck drivers and guess what? Nobody wants to be a truck driver. Because it's a terrible job... Why does somebody not want to be away from their family for 4 to 8 days in a row doing long haul trucking? ... Mining is 1% of the labor pool globally, 8% of work related fatalities. Do you think people are rushing to work in mines when they hear stats like this? Most major mines have a fatality regularly... And so it's these are not good jobs.
verbatim transcript · starts at 45:20
45:07can do this we'll give you everything. So then it's just up to us to like get there as as you know aggressively. >> Well, you know the fear for a long time has been for trucking for some reason triggers the at least the press's imagination on like you know sort of apocalyptic levels of job loss. Like will there >> but that's it's so wrong. Go ahead. >> There's not there's not enough truck
45:23drivers and guess what? Nobody wants to freaking be a truck driver. >> Why is that? Explain that. >> Because it's a terrible job. It's like you're you're like you're like >> by the way I grew up the main feature of the town where I grew up was a truck stop. So I know the answer but why is truck why is truck driving now >> it's like it's like you're asking me
45:39it's you know what this is this is like a you know talking to my kid who's like well why can't I put my hand on the stove? It's like because it's going to burn your hand. [laughter] It's like but why? It's like after the third why it's like come on buddy let's do this [laughter] >> the hard way. >> Yeah let's [clears throat] So what's hard? >> I'm kidding. Just wanted to make sure
45:57everybody knows I did not do that [laughter] with the first time. >> Yes. Yes. So what's hard? What why why is being a truck driver a difficult job or why would kids not want to do it when they grow up? >> So what let me use a parallel analogy which is very clear and then you can why you know people will say like nobody wants to work anymore and they say well
46:13you know McDonald's has all these job openings. No, no. Actually, what it is is those people that used to work at McDonald's now Door Dash and Uber >> because it's better for them because they can open they can start their hours and end their hours and they don't have to there's no boss and they don't have to like stand on their feet and they can surf their phone in between, you know,
46:30orders and they don't like that's the reason it's not random. The market is efficient. And so in the truck driving example, why does somebody not want to be away from their family for 4 to 8 days in a row doing long haul trucking? The more sharp example is in Australia, why don't people want to go literally buy a plane to go to a mine and work on
46:54or you go offro uh offshore oil rigs. Those jobs exist. If you want a job that pays six figures, they exist. even with such lucrative pay packages, it's not enough because people are like, you know what, >> I like kind of being around my family and I'm willing to take an incremental decrease in cost and and how much money I make. >> And and then also like I think today
47:15more than ever things like >> back pain and like being exposed to the sun and cancer and people that care about that's now a part of the >> this is the thing. Tell me if I I have this right, but I believe it's because I think commercial long-term drivers die life expectancy 10 years less than their peers. And I think it's a con people say it's a consequence