The trucking industry has a driver problem. The job pays well and doesn’t require a college degree, but the long hours and lonely stretches on the road make it a tough way of life. That’s why the long haul trucking market sees an annual labor turnover rate of more than 90 percent, according to Bob Costello, chief economist at the American Trucking Association. The industry estimates it will need to hire a total of 890,000 new truck drivers over the next decade.

The driver shortage is a problem for everyone, because trucking’s crucial to the American economy. Two thirds of freight in the US is hauled by truckers, accounting for $54.8 billion worth of imported and exported goods in 2015.

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The question, then, is what drivers can do when their hands and minds aren’t needed for driving. “Automation reduces the opportunity costs for drivers and their companies by allowing them to legally and more consistently multi-task,” says Dan Siciliano, a law professor specializing in corporate governance and robotics at Stanford University.

“In-cab time could be dedicated to higher skill activities, as opposed to just driving,” Siciliano says. You can see the traditionally blue collar truck driver “ultimately having more of a back office white collar profile.” Depending on how trucking companies monetize (or allow employees to monetize) that look-Ma-no-hands time, autonomous trucking could demand a new kind of driver: someone who can back up a big rig and wield a keyboard.

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