[SeanAnderson]

A recent Uber driver of mine encountered bay bridge traffic, said, "I know a shortcut!" and veered out of the line waiting to enter the bridge. Then, Uber Safety called my phone asking if everything was alright. Then, the driver realized he didn't know where I was trying to go, asked me, realized I needed to go to Oakland, and spent 10+ minutes going in a slow circle to get back to the line of traffic.

A few drives later, I had a group dinner reservation at a restaurant downtown. I'm not a big sports person and I didn't realize I was asking to go downtown on the Saturday before the Super Bowl. Uber told me I had to wait 4 minutes for pickup, but that turned into a 20+ minute wait as driver after driver canceled on me when they saw where I was asking to go. I had to text all of the guests and apologize for being late to my own reservation.

A few drives later, I had a long conversation with a gay driver who recently fled from Iraq because his sexual identity wasn't respected there. I'm a mid-thirties, single male. The first question the driver asked me when I got in the car was if I had a family. I said no. Then he asked if I had a girlfriend. I said no. Then he slowly engaged with me in conversation for 10 minutes trying to figure out if I was a potential date for him and had trouble understanding that while I fully supported his sexual identity that that didn't mean I was an opportunity for connection.

Last weekend, as I was espousing the benefits of Waymo to a friend, they called an Uber while we were heading down from a restaurant at the top of an elevator. When we got down to the bottom floor, he was dismayed. Someone else had gotten into the Uber, the driver didn't check names, and they were now travelling on his dime.

Surely it's not that hard to envision the scenarios in which an autonomous driver might be desirable?

[timeagain]

This is misanthropic tech vision at its finest. I got a job recommendation from an Uber driver. My aunt (against TOS) built a private driver business based on her personality after driving Lyft from the airport. I had a great conversation with a Somalian driver who’s favorite music artist was Dolly Parton. Once a driver saved me from a hairy situation with an irate customer who was chasing me and throwing things, I tipped him $20 and we laughed about it—I was just happy to have someone to witness the crazy.

Not to mention the thousands of people who currently make a respectable living driving people around.

But maybe I’m just one of those extroverts who doesn’t mind being around people.

[SeanAnderson]

Great. I am happy you are satisfied with the quality of service you're given by human drivers. I would hope you would be equally happy with the increased enjoyment I experience from an automated driving experience.

We will have to agree to disagree on whether it's a beneficial change to society to disrupt human drivers with autonomous drivers. Personally, I found the argument that artists shouldn't be disrupted by AI much more defensible than saying drivers shouldn't be disrupted. It always seemed easy to look at previously disrupted jobs, like people getting up at 4AM to act as manual alarm clocks via peashooters on windows, and say yes, we should replace this simple act of labor with technology.

[johnnyanmac]

>But maybe I’m just one of those extroverts who doesn’t mind being around people.

Maybe. I had a very boring experience overall with mine. I wouldn't have noticed if they were replaced with bots. That could be my lack of extroversion (or maybe getting all introverts myself. Few gave a vibe of wanting to chat. Just a job, after all).

But for the short term, I'm paranoid right now about autonomous driving because it is far from technologically sound. Probably more sound than the average driver, but we know that we hold tech a lot more accountable than humans. humans hold liability in human issues, companies are liable for tech issues and have the money to spend to fight any issues that arise (as we can see in real time with Tesla).

[JumpCrisscross]

> maybe I’m just one of those extroverts who doesn’t mind being around people

Sometimes I want a chauffeur, usually one I have a relationship with, often I want a reliable ride. We’re all better off for having the choice.

[MenhirMike]

It would be nice to have an UberSSR option for sure, for the people that just want a ride.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FUQYPfL0Pg

[JumpCrisscross]

> would be nice to have an UberSSR option for sure

They ask for temperature and conversation preferences when you order a black car, which I find somewhat funny.

[ugh123]

>But maybe I’m just one of those extroverts who doesn’t mind being around people.

Maybe. Or you've just been "lucky" with the kinds of experiences you've had on Uber.

I've had some really annoying drivers, shitty drivers. People have reported assaults and some have ended up worse.

If this were a daily thing for people (which it could be in the future), I wouldn't want a 1on1 experience every day (twice a day) with a new driver each time, each with their own personalities, driving abilities, and needs at the moment. Forget that.

[CalRobert]

And how many people are killed by taxi or Uber drivers? Their stories matter too. If you're a pedestrian or cyclist you quickly realize how dangerous "professional" drivers are.

[AlbertCory]

Your assumption is that Uber/Lyft will now disappear and you'll HAVE to ride Waymo?

Seems dubious to me. Can't you still call an Uber in SF, where they've had Waymo for a while?

[ugh123]

I really don't see how a human-centered driving company survives with something that is near fully automated and new "drivers" can just be ordered up from Stellantis or whomever, provisioned, and sent on the road. The scaling laws just don't match up.

I say "near fully automated" because there's loads of operations involved, including human remote fleet management for when cars get stuck. But even that doesn't scale linearly with the amount of automated vehicles on the road, whereas Uber will always be at least 1:1 human:car.

[AlbertCory]

What is the cost in SF? This early review says the same:

https://archive.ph/7mPWk

So I don't see the point of theorizing, when we can get real-world feedback from customers.

[ugh123]

You're comparing costs now? The price for human powered uber's will always increase based on labor costs. The price to put an autonomous vehicle on the road and manage it will most likely decrease as more are deployed and Waymo gets better at operating them. Time will tell, but Uber will not last once Waymo gets good at scaling this stuff.

[AlbertCory]

> You're comparing costs now? T

I'm comparing costs in other comments in this thread.

as I said, if Waymo is actually charging money now, then real data is much more credible than a theoretical analysis like yours.

[bagels]

How will waymo help with something like the super bowl? It's going to be overcapacity too.

[JumpCrisscross]

> How will waymo help with something like the super bowl?

It will commit to the ride and not cancel.

[alistairSH]

Only if it’s coded that way. And a profit-seeking org may not code it that way if the optimal solution (for them) is canceling and finding more lucrative passengers.

[bastawhiz]

A profit seeking org wouldn't take the ride in the first place instead of repeatedly accepting and cancelling. Or it would simply increase the price because it implicitly knows the value.

[alistairSH]

And yet Uber allows drivers to cancel, which has the same impact as an AI cancelling.

[xw390111]

If they want me to take a ride tomorrow, they won't cancel on me today.

[SeanAnderson]

Waymo said it would take 30 minutes to arrive, but would've arrived in 30 minutes. I can plan around that.

[ugh123]

> How will waymo help with something like the super bowl? It's going to be overcapacity too.

Ability to scale the amount of Waymo cars to an area is immensely easier than scaling the amount of Uber/Lyft drivers available and willing to go to said area.

[nradov]

Nope. Cars are expensive. Waymo won't keep a bunch of extras sitting around just so that they have reserve capacity to scale up service during unusually busy events. It's more profitable just to make customers wait, or ask them to pay a higher fare for priority service.

[bigyikes]

Cars are extremely cheap compared to their drivers.

[aetherson]

I don't think that Waymo cars are.

[xw390111]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johanmoreno/2021/01/22/waymo-ce...

"Krafcik made the point, as some analysts predict autonomous vehicle technology will be too expensive to adopt en masse. Waymo uses LiDAR sensors in its vehicles, which previously retailed for as much as $75,000. In 2019, Krafcik signaled that its Honeycomb LiDAR units now cost around $7,500."

And price is only going to come down over time.

[fragmede]

Let's say the Waymo cars are $1 million each, which is probably high, given than a fully loaded i-Pace is $80k, which still leaves $920,000 for Google/Waymo devices and software costs to get to $1 million. Given the estimate for a human life at $7.4 million[1], I think they are.

[1]https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-v...

[thereisnospork]

What they can do is trivially reroute cars from the suburbs - a level of supply control Uber can only approximate with surge pricing.

[nradov]

It turns out everyone in the suburbs is also going to a Superbowl party. Whoops.

[earthwalker99]

Simply not true. The US is constantly flooded with fresh immigrants who can get drivers licenses and drive for super cheap on unlivable wages.

[throwitaway222]

> Stuff where I want to be surrounded by robots all my life.

I mean, if a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound? Even if yes, does it matter?

If we're just going to let the robots be the only thing we see all day long, why not just call it - hang up the hats build full AGI and blow up the humans.

[SeanAnderson]

I don't consider driving in traffic to be a pinnacle of human experience worthy of preservation. I certainly have concerns about AI automating away some jobs, but I thought stop-and-go city driving was something everyone could agree on as being worthwhile to eliminate.

I'm surprised there's such a staunch defense.

[johnnyanmac]

>but I thought stop-and-go city driving was something everyone could agree on as being worthwhile to eliminate.

It's mixed. Driving is both a career and a pastime/hobby. I can certainly see a long term (30+ year) shift to AI driving being a hindrance to the latter, even if the efficiencies would be massive (e.g. there wouldn't be such thing as "stop and go city driving" to the extent of modern day driving. Stop and go is a product of inefficient human sensors and signalling).

As a career, yes. It probably won't exist in 20 years at this rate.

[JumpCrisscross]

> we're just going to let the robots be the only thing we see all day long

This is an uncharitable reading of someone wanting peace and quiet from time to time.

[alistairSH]

Going downtown on Super Bowl night isn’t exactly peace and quiet.

But yeah, taxis and Ubers can suck sometimes.

[konschubert]

Yes it makes a sound and it matters as much as you want it to.

[barbazoo]

> A few drives later, I had a long conversation with a gay driver who recently fled from Iraq because his sexual identity wasn't respected there...

Avoiding talking to humans altogether is one thing but couldn't we also just say "sorry I don't feel like chatting" or something like that?

[JumpCrisscross]

> couldn't we also just say "sorry I don't feel like chatting"

I’ve been hit on by a few Uber drivers. (Early thirties guy.) They stop talking then forget after two seconds. Unfortunately, the person who crosses the first boundary isn’t deterred by the second.

That said, I do appreciate the chutzpah of the driver who tried to invite himself to my date for a threesome.

[SeanAnderson]

Yeah, I could definitely set better boundaries. It's not a strong suit of mine.