When Innovation Goes Too Far: The Danger of Automating Away America’s First Job

If we, as a society, allow AI driverless vehicles to take over the entire delivery infrastructure of the United States, we’re going to wipe out the number-one entry-level job for young people and high-school-educated workers. And that won’t be sustainable for a free society.

I’m all for innovation. I love progress. But some jobs are the foundation of our workforce pipeline. Delivery jobs—local routes, regional trucking, grocery delivery, food service, courier work—have always been the starting point for millions of Americans who need that first real paycheck, that first step into the working world. If we automate all of that away, we create a generation with fewer opportunities, fewer skills, and fewer ways to climb the ladder.

And here’s what people don’t want to admit: the economic impact of mass automation in transportation won’t be a slow burn. It will be a shockwave. Delivery and logistics touch almost one-third of the U.S. workforce when you include trucking, warehousing, gig delivery, shipping, couriers, and all the industries attached to them. If those jobs disappear too quickly, the hit to earnings, consumer spending, and even real estate will be immediate and brutal.

So here’s the blunt truth:
If you start seeing fully autonomous fleets replacing human drivers at scale, that’s your sign to seriously rethink the stock market and look toward gold and silver—because that level of disruption doesn’t trickle in. It crashes in.

Innovation is great. Progress is necessary. But eliminating millions of working-class jobs overnight? That’s not progress. That’s a social and economic time bomb.

The economy only works when people have jobs.
And a free society only works when people believe they have a future.