[buu700]

I'd be more inclined to believe that an abundance of robotaxis will use predictive algorithms to preemptively show up wherever they're likely to be needed, allowing a UX where users can hail them like traditional taxis without an app. Maybe not in four years, but maybe in a decade or two.

That feels both more credible and more desirable than the magic panopticon predicted in the quote, and doesn't really depend on any major technological leaps beyond continued maturation and scaling of Waymo/alternatives.

[hn_throwaway_99]

I agree with what you've written about robotaxis, and Uber/Lyft already put a ton of data analysis into ensuring they have capacity where it's needed. But I don't think apps are going anywhere anytime soon, or in decades for that matter, primarily because there are economic forces in play that make them desirable for the network owners.

[buu700]

Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting that the apps will or should ever go away, but rather that with sufficient volume both ways could become plausible options. If an available Waymo happens to be sitting there waiting for a passenger, I don't see why it shouldn't let me just tap my credit card on the handle or something and tell it where to drop me off. Of course, summoning one or tapping my phone would ideally work too.

[hn_throwaway_99]

> I don't see why it shouldn't let me just tap my credit card on the handle or something and tell it where to drop me off.

I imagine because a huge part of optimizing fleet availability and distribution is knowing where you want to go before deciding which vehicle you should travel in.

[buu700]

Ah, yeah, that's a good point. I can imagine some potential creative workarounds (e.g. having certain rides or types of rides involve transferring between two vehicles, possibly with multiple parties per vehicle like Uber Pool), but whether they'd actually be willing to support that is another matter entirely.

[pyrolistical]

So robo taxis are going to stalk us?

[buu700]

lol, I mean I wouldn't be surprised, but I don't think I was describing anything fundamentally different in principle from what Uber/Lyft/taxis already do. Like when you walk out of an airport or a super busy bar/club and there's already a line of cabs waiting for anyone who needs one to get in.

[daemin]

Or you know, maybe have public transport that's available so you can easily get it to where you need to go.

Having a city's worth of automated cars driving around all the time sounds like a hellscape.

[buu700]

I'd feel safer with streets populated by fleets of mature autonomous vehicles than the current status quo, even (or especially) when traveling by foot and train (which I do often). Public transit is great, but cars also exist for good reasons.

[daemin]

The streets would be far safer with far fewer cars on the road. Having automated fleets just increases the number of cars on the roads making the streets less safe. This is due to each fleet needing enough capacity on the road at any time to handle the demand and response times expected.