[mindcandy]

“About half of all food deliveries globally are shorter than 2 and a half miles, which basically means that all of our cities are filled with burrito taxis”

There is a future where a city's burrito taxis are replaced with drones rolling on the sidewalk or flying to the rooftops. And, the large majority of the remaining city drivers are replaced by robotaxis with multi-sensor 360 tracking. Where there are nearly zero parked cars. So, the parking spaces have been replaced with bike lanes of bikers and scooters with every robotaxi on the street planning around their motion.

Far less fuel consumption. Far less street crowding. Far fewer accidents.

And, of course everyone hates the idea.

[swatcoder]

What do you think the noise is like in your future city? How many cameras and microphones are constantly streaming everything they see and hear into some corporation's private cloud? How many advertisements do we see on our pleasant bike ride? What's it like when a blizzard or flood drives the environment far outside of training norms? Have the debris-collecting drones already been deployed to clean up e-waste when the built-to-be-abandoned delivery drones lose battery or guidance, or is that a V2 thing? Are the police equipped to track down to track down the hacker that overrode my delivery drone?

We used to have books exploring scenarios like this. They were great books, a lot of time, but the most convincing ones didn't paint your future to be a very pretty, peaceful, or equitable one. You might want to read some, at least to understand why some people might be inclined to "hate this idea".

[saghm]

> How many cameras and microphones are constantly streaming everything they see and hear into some corporation's private cloud?

For what it's worth, the answer for this question for today is already probably fairly high for most large US cities, unfortunately

[CameronBanga]

The Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel is the solution.

[pirates]

Yes in fact I do hate the idea of dozens to hundreds of drones per day flying around my house and neighborhood.

[Sabinus]

There are thousands of vehicles moving around your house and neighbourhood already. The vast majority of them are large enough to kill you, and emit fumes that poison you and the atmosphere.

Cities will have lots of drone deliveries in them in the future. And it'll be more safe and economical than the current situation.

[glitcher]

Pneumatic burrito tubes directly into my home is the future I want.

[kiernanmcgowan]

I’m working on a burrito artillery system. It’s the ideal form factor for high velocity chorizo but the delivery tends to make a mess.

[wlesieutre]

Have you looked into burrito parachutes?

[goopypoop]

the hungry will adapt

[crooked-v]

Recently there's been a lot of anger in San Francisco about a Waymo (which have an excellent safety record with humans) killing an outdoor cat who that walked under the car and sat in front of a tire, when not long after someone was killed by a person backing into a crosswalk and it was a barely a blip on the radar.

[boh]

The person who killed the bystander has social/legal/financial ramifications. Google had zero.

Anyone ever ask themselves why they have a knee-jerk impulse to support a billion dollar company's attempt at centralizing transportation?I'm sorry but safety and making your life easier isn't Silicon Valley's main concern.

[hombre_fatal]

Waymos need to be cheap and convenient to get business (they are a service), and they need to be safer to avoid litigation and social/political problems. Their business interests are aligned with both.

So why can't we prefer robot vehicles on the basis of safety and convenience?

If you want to make it about centralization, needing to pay big money for a personal vehicle (most of which through centralized dealers), register it with the state and an insurance company, requiring a government license, paying for insurance/registration in perpetuity, having to park it in special parking zones -- that's as centralized and locked down as it gets.

[Esophagus4]

Waymo’s cars are, statistically, an order of magnitude safer than human-driven cars.

It sounds like your real MO is that you think SV tech doesn’t care about safety or its customers… which is fine, I guess, but it’s muddying the point you were trying to make as your comment kind of devolved into a strange rant.

[boh]

For people outside the tech bubble, having strangers constantly market a product for a company they don't even work for as if it's their own spontaneous, original premise is "strange".

[monerozcash]

Where do you see that?

[ausbah]

if an animal runs into the road and is hit by a vehicle, as long as the driver safely stops after, i don’t think the driver is generally charged after afaik

[boh]

The comment is responding to a premise made regarding a person being hit by a car--which believe it or not--has legal ramifications. And we don't have to think about it regarding the pet, civil liability is still in play for them too.

[slillibri]

I hate it because the last thing we need on sidewalks, at least here in Seattle, is more junk making it impossible to walk anywhere.