Comment by orsenthil

6 hours ago

Singapore is a controlled economy, and has a large workforce for Taxi Drivers and part-time drivers through Grab. I am not sure how the entrenchment of robotaxis like Waymo (and future tesla) is going to play with the general population. My guess, they will co-exist as the government wont jeopardize the living of the taxi-driver-complaining uncles.

Also, I notice a lot new SF based AI companies have started establishing their offices in Singapore too. Sierra, and Fireworks coming to my mind. As government plays a huge part in Singapore, I guess, government noticing these as necessary investments for the future of Singapore.

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orsenthil

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zhivota  4 hours ago

Singapore will do what they always do, which is take a measured approach and control every aspect of the roll out. If they're allowing this, it's because they've already modeled a shortfall in taxi drivers in the future, and they'll keep the number of licenses for each type in balance to meet their goals.

  • pydry  4 hours ago

    Judging by the depressing number of elderly selling tissues in food courts to get by I dont think the government ever really cared about eliminating service jobs.

    It's enough for them that those people have somewhere basic to live and basic medical care so their stats dont look too bad.

ValentineC  2 hours ago

> Also, I notice a lot new SF based AI companies have started establishing their offices in Singapore too. Sierra, and Fireworks coming to my mind. As government plays a huge part in Singapore, I guess, government noticing these as necessary investments for the future of Singapore.

Mostly sales offices (and of course, "forward deployed engineers").

We don't usually see exciting tech projects being assigned to Singapore teams, especially with our huge timezone difference with the Bay Area.

cdf  3 hours ago

Singapore wants to _look_ modern, and Waymos with the spinning lidars are such icons of futurism that Singapore cannot afford to lose out (as compared to Pony.ai's AV fleet, which is already deployed but not very eye catching).

But the best part of that control is the free market is only free to the extent the government allows it. There is plenty of time for the taxi drivers to retire. In fact, I believe the average age of taxi drivers are close to 70, so this is forward looking to address an incoming cab driver shortage.

Singapore really wants to look like Season 3 of Westworld. A shame the Marina Bay flying drone taxi service looks completely dead.