The US government is planning to use artificial intelligence to target trucking firms that hire illegal foreign drivers, a move aimed at improving enforcement and spotting bad actors faster than human inspectors. The plan was announced by the Department of Transportation Deputy Secretary Steven Bradbury during the Transportation Research Board's annual meeting in Washington.
According to Bradbury, the widespread practice of hiring illegal foreign drivers is 'eating the lunch of local drivers' by driving down pay to unreasonable levels. He claimed that smart algorithms can comb through mountains of licensing and employment data to find patterns of fraud that normally slip by unnoticed.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has already been turning up the heat on states that issued questionable commercial driver licenses, with roughly 200,000 trucking jobs potentially affected by an emergency rule aimed at cancelling non-domiciled licenses. However, the rule is currently paused in federal court while officials sift through thousands of public comments.
The AI enforcement plan fits into a larger political picture, as part of the administration's aggressive deregulation agenda, which includes eliminating 10 rules for every major new one created. The Department of Transportation has also resumed work on autonomous vehicle regulation, with plans to speed up exemptions and provide clearer guidance going forward.
For trucking companies, the message is clear: smarter computers are coming and they will be watching very closely.
The use of AI in this context raises concerns about the potential for bias and unequal treatment of drivers. As the technology becomes more prevalent, it's essential to ensure that it's used fairly and transparently to avoid exacerbating existing issues in the trucking industry.
