Comment by ptaffs
3 days ago
What does robotaxi offer apart from less taxi-driver jobs? They can't inherently shorten journeys or avoid surface disruption, we already have taxi services in most cities. This just removes a human job and that's the progress.
Do you know any women who have had drivers act inappropriately towards them? Or drivers who pretend the meter is broken and try to charge more?
There are lots of reasons somebody might prefer a driverless car and lots of reasons somebody might prefer a human driver. Why not have a choice?
Do you know any minors that had the police called on them mid ride by a RoboTaxi company becuase the taxi AI though the minor had guns. Yeah Waymo did that.
For your Women's safety POV. just because now youre alone in the car doesn’t really mean you are alone. You are under constant remote surveillance.
Regarding the meter broke issue. So you'd rather have corporate price fixing. Because that’s what Waymo is doing. The fleet size is same but the costs are going up.
And when a giant tech company is a service provided and rule maker , you don't really have a choice left.
> the taxi AI though[sic] the minor had guns
That is not what happened.
The Support Team checked in on the live internal video after being alerted, and the Support Team saw firearms, so they alerted law enforcement, who arrested the children, for possession of actual guns.
How is that wrong or bad?
So it sounds like you agree with me in that different people have different concerns and it's good that there are options out there.
What does a 1-driver taxi compared to a 2-drivers taxi offer apart from fewer taxi-driver jobs? They can't inherently shorten journeys or avoid surface disruption, we already have taxi services in most cities. This just removes a human job and that's the progress.
Now what about a 3-drivers taxi?
The answer is always the same, people hope to lower the driver cost, which I believe is significant for a 1-driver taxi.
Well, some long-haul coaches have two drivers to allow them to switch-out for safety but keep the passengers and bus moving. Of all the things to get excited about, I don't understand why reducing the labor costs for corporates is one. Improving transportation instead would benefit us all, for example with better road design and mixed/integrated transport systems.
30-35% of the cost of running a city bus is the driver.
Imagine what cities could do with 50% higher bus frequency or more bus routes.
Buses / Trams are the best use of this tech since not only is a high percentage of the cost the driver but they also drive the same predictable routes and not all over the place.
There are issues though. If you remove the staff from the bus you will need to handle some particularly unruly passengers in a different way. Currently the driver just stops until that person leaves or gets police / special constables involved.
If you've ever seen bus drivers in NYC, it's genuinely impressive how they manage to weave a giant box through the chaos. I'm not sure that self-driving tech will be able to replace them anytime soon.
This would be interesting for my native Kansas City though. There's a severe shortage of buses and it's much simpler driving conditions. Could be a game changer.
If you remove the cost of the driver, smaller buses become more viable.
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Where are you getting this number? Imagination is free but to execute the imagination is not. So yes, it depends on the imagination of the person who owns the tech AI company not your imagination.
And what is the cost of replacing the driver with the hardware/software and the servicing cost. and the operators in Philippines that are remotely working ?
> Where are you getting this number?
Previous discussion on this topic on HN. I don't feel like searching for it now, you are welcome to.
I don't know what you're saying about imagination.
But, Waymo removed the driver and it's not cheaper than Uber, correct?
I thought that was because of the cost of the hardware. I could be wrong though.
Ok except apparently Waymo is more expensive than human-driven alternatives.
And you think that'll always be true?
Have more buses blocking traffic?
"You aren't in traffic. You are traffic."
As a driver, you should want cheaper buses. More bus riders = fewer other cars on the road.
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- frees up people to do more important things than drive you around.
- can play your own weird free jazz via Spotify.
- obeys traffic rules
> frees up people to do more important things than drive you around
Like what?
They still need a paycheck. What do you think the outcome of a bunch of unemployed taxi drivers is going to be? What other low skill career is going to absorb them?
We're really rapidly approaching a "automate too many jobs for the remainder of the job market to absorb" situation imo and It's hard for me to imagine it going very well for anyone.
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Safety. Waymos are safer for passengers and pedestrians than human-driven cars.
A more uniform experience across taxi rides.
I'm sure many people have had enjoyable rides with taxis. I've had many.
But I've also has rides where the drivers was obviously exhausted and driving recklessly, and I've had a few drives where the driver started going on about some insane political topics.
Some days I don't want the latter. Having that service would be a nice option.
It obeys the rules of the road and kills many fewer people - 0 killed in 250M miles. Driving a machine is something people are not good enough at frankly.
> What does robotaxi offer apart from less taxi-driver jobs?
One more passenger seat (once the wheel is removed); the option for privacy (once the recordings are removed); increased safety (starting now, but even more so in the future); ability to build overnight charging stations in unpopulated areas; once fully adapted you can have reduction or removal of parking spaces, eliminate commercial daytime traffic, etc. Maybe it is the ever optimist in me… I think eliminating a job that led to increased cardiovascular problems and reduced lifespan of fulltime drivers while keeping the human rate of accidents, will be seen as an obvious improvement in human civilization in the future, similar to giving up horse carriages.
Of the robotaxis in Austin, I've only used Waymo, but have used it fairly extensively. So far I have noticed:
- Waymo vehicles don't argue about having the air conditioning on,
- They don't try and talk about local (or national) politics to you while driving,
- They don't play annoying games to try to make you cancel rides they don't want to take while collecting cancellation fees (see the /r/uberdrivers subreddit for quite how endemic this is),
- The selection of music (or not) is with the rider, not the driver,
- They smell better - an especially important point during summer when temperatures are regularly over 100 degrees. This is as much about the lack of gross air freshener trees as it is about an extra person in the car the whole day,
- The cars aren't falling apart. This has got noticeably worse for Uber and Lyft (which was always a little more flexible on the age and condition of cars) - it's not uncommon to see fault lights on human-driven ride share vehicles, or body panels duct-taped or twined in place.
There are three major disadvantages right now:
- Waymo is only available through the Uber app, and there is no preference to say you only want Waymo vehicles. This will be fixed in January 2028, which I assume is contractual rather than technical, since during the launch period the standalone app was used - but I wish they'd hurry up, or they'll likely lose my business to Zoox or similar,
- They don't use highways currently, leading to some fairly circuitous routes that take longer than they should, especially to downtown,
- They don't go to the airport. Ride sharing dynamic pricing to the airport means that for trips under a week it's often cheaper to park than to ride-share though (even from ~downtown). I have no doubt that the robotaxis will learn the tricks of late-stage capitalism once they have some market lock-in though.
IMO it's a safer and more comfortable passenger experience
Road safety. Personal safety. A consistent experience.
HackerNews is a bubble in itself. Most people here cannot relate to a person who drives a cab for a living and is having a real tangbile crisis seeing how these tech companies are eating up their livelihood. Switching jobs for a taxi driver is not the same as switching jobs or career as a software coolie.
No taxi driver union can combat the amount of money waymo is spending lobbying.
[1] https://sfstandard.com/2023/08/23/cruise-waymo-spent-million...
New York is still holding on but I dont know how long it can. https://thenextweb.com/news/waymo-new-york-city-political-ro...