[jFriedensreich]

No product had such a fast transition from novelty to "omg i never want to interact with a human again". I feel about 100% less stressed and happier using a waymo or riding motorbike or bicycle next to a waymo than with human drivers. I hope this next phase will bring availability and prices down. We need this in europe.

[lazarus01]

Im fortunate to live in an area dense with traditional taxis and Ubers, no Waymo yet.

I rarely take taxis, the exception is when I have to haul my gear to the studio for a jam session. I always take a taxi, because it’s cheaper and faster than using an app to call an uber.

On 80% of the trips, I end up having a nice chat with the driver and learn something new about humanity or myself.

I really enjoy these interactions, but I feel for the drivers, it’s a very tough job where most taxi drivers have to scramble to find places to urinate or do so in an empty bottle between their legs. There is not much dignity in the job. I feel a negligible segment enjoy it as a reliable career.

I wonder what will happen to the drivers if a large representation of the 1 million+ daily trips are displaced by automation?

[amccollum]

I used to feel this way. In the early days of "ride sharing," I preferred Lyft and would sit up front so I could have a conversation with the driver, which they encouraged. It was really fun for a while, and I enjoyed meeting people from different walks of life. Over time, though, transportation became much more functional for me, and now when I take non-autonomous rides, it's more irksome than enjoyable when drivers strike up conversations.

Why the change? I think a big part of your experience is the fact that you "rarely take taxis." Once you're doing it daily or near-daily, the amount of smalltalk becomes more tiresome. Also, with kids and a busy life, I'm usually either looking to get things done or enjoy a rare moment to myself as I'm moving from place-to-place. I agree with OP that Waymo is a huge step up on those dimensions. There's no other human in the same space to feel awkward around.

The fact that they drive more safely and smoothly is a huge improvement, as well. Ironically, I thought this was going to be something I would hate about Waymo. "You mean it drives the speed limit and follows all the traffic laws? It will take forever to get anywhere." It took approximately one ride for my perspective to completely flip. It's so much nicer to not feel the stress of a driver who is driving aggressively or jerking to a stop/start at every intersection. It's not like you can tell them to just ease up a bit, either. When we ride with our kids, we feel massively safer in Waymos.

Yes, it will be disruptive, and I don't particularly love the dominance that big tech has in all of our lives, but I do think Waymo is a marvel, and I hugely appreciate it as an option. As soon as they can take kids alone to all their various activities, it will be yet another massive unlock for parents.

[scyzoryk_xyz]

As a former Lyft driver in SF I felt kinda weird when saw the bit about urination. Like, that's just not a problem. As a driver you just plan ahead as in any other job out there where you're not allowed to disengage at a whim. Pilots and surgeons don't pee in bottles, why would drivers? It's kinda funny when people try to empathize but come up with these creative scenarios of what's challenging. The parts that are bad are same as any other thing done for a living: money and dealing with other people. The job was shit when people were shit and/or when the money was shit.

I enjoyed it as a job, not a career. But that was in 2015.

[mschuster91]

> I really enjoy these interactions, but I feel for the drivers, it’s a very tough job where most taxi drivers have to scramble to find places to urinate or do so in an empty bottle between their legs.

Public toilets, their condition and their non-existence are an often-overlooked issue! It's not just highly problematic for taxi drivers, but also for parcel and postal delivery people... and it's not just relevant for workers either, it's also (IMHO) a violation of anti-discrimination laws.

Imagine you're old and don't have much bladder control or volume, or you're a woman who recently has given birth, or you got one of the variety of bowel related diseases, or you've got a child who is still dependent on diapers. Your range of free unimpeded movement is basically limited to where you have easy and fast access to a toilet or at the very least a place to take care of yourself/a child.

[josu]

>I wonder what will happen to the drivers if a large representation of the 1 million+ daily trips are displaced by automation?

If it happens gradually enough, they will just find other jobs. After the transition, society will be producing more with the same labor force, and thus the aggregate utility will increase.

[93po]

try talking to young attractive women on their experiences and you'll maybe appreciate this somewhat forced interaction less. my partner has been literally kidnapped multiple times (refused to take her to her destination and refused to let her out for over an hour), had drivers refuse to unlock doors until she gave them her number at least once every two months, and constantly has drivers take detours and longer routes to force conversation for longer.

the sooner we can stop subjecting people to having to interact with strangers in a semi-private setting just for basic needs like getting around, the better off vulnerable people will be

[dyauspitr]

I think there will still be delivery services where you need someone to go into the restaurant and then up to the customers door. That’s going to stick around unless we get to a point where the restaurant is responsible to load up the Waymo and the customer is responsible for getting it out which probably won’t happen anytime soon. The whole delivery market was also mostly created overnight from something that didn’t exist before.

[metalcrow]

> I always take a taxi, because it’s cheaper and faster than using an app to call an uber.

I'm really surprised to hear that. Are you in a large city where taxies are common? Or do you have a local taxi service and app that is very good?

[dmd]

God, yes, and someone think of the gong farmers and pole men.

[spookie]

Honestly same thing, taxis seem to be polite and up to have a chat about anything here. So, not that hyped about these things really.

[biztos]

I’m surprised they don’t have opt-in LLM-based “chatty mode” where you can talk to the AI personality of your choice while riding. Obviously shouldn’t be the same AI that’s deciding whether to run over the child or crash into the oncoming train.

[edit: riding not driving]

[nvch]

For me, this is the major selling point to own a car. I may drive a few times a week, and taxis might be much cheaper, but no way I'm going to deal with human taxi drivers if I have a choice.

[bandofthehawk]

This seems weird to me, maybe it's a generational thing. Is it really that bad to share a car with someone? You don't have to talk to them the whole time.

[spwa4]

I always (as soon as I could) owned a car, first on independence, but soon that became on price. A car costs between $350 and $500 per month, plus about 2 gas tanks, let's say $600. That's only 10-15 short taxi rides and two long taxi rides at best.

And now I have a family, there's 5 of us. A car is easily less than half the price of public transport for what I need to do (because you pay per person).

I hate traffic, and I don't really like driving, but since a car is easily 30 minutes faster than public transport to drive in to work, sadly 30 minutes of traffic in the morning is still faster than public transport, no matter how annoying it is. Oh and no waiting in the rain/cold is a nice bonus.

[catlover76]

Taxis are not a replacement for having a car for commuting for like 99% of people

[locknitpicker]

> No product had such a fast transition from novelty to "omg i never want to interact with a human again".

I still recall when taxi services were the only offering, and Uber et al were marketed as ride sharing services instead of ride hailing services. It's hard to put into words the transformative effect that ride hailing services had throughout the world. Overall rides are now far safer and more reliable, to the point where the old days feel like the dark ages.

[noncoml]

My anecdote: My wife had to literally have two drinks before here first Waymo ride. Now she doesn't want to use anything else other that Waymo when we can't drive ourselves, and totally agree with her

Having said that, Uber was amazing experience when it started too, now it's on par with cabs.

[balgg]

>We need this in europe.

I'm not against automated driving at all, but in my experience we actually don't have that much use for stuff like this in most (big) European cities, since almost all of them have good public transport options already. I think trams especially fill the hole of "low-friction transport in a city" perfectly. I think having less vehicles on the road is a benefit to us all, but I understand some cities are not as tightly packed for public transport to work that well.

Either way, less human drivers is better.

[pixelready]

Yeah, this is one of my guilty automation pleasures alongside self-checkout. I hate that I am displacing a human, and I mourn for the handful of really pleasant taxi / Uber experiences I’ve had over the years, but damn is Waymo such a better default experience right now.

I really hope there’s enough viable competition over time to keep costs down or I worry this will evolve into robo-limos rather than a nice cheap default option for areas without good public transit infrastructure. The DUI prevention alone is such a huge win.

There is the matter of surveillance though. I don’t love that I have to take their word on not abusing the cabin recordings, but I guess that’s pretty much all modern vehicles (via onStar and the like) not just robo-taxis. Pretty much every Sci-fi dystopian with urban infrastructure has that scene where the corrupt authorities have someone’s self-driving car pulled over remotely, that seems important as well given the state of things lately.

[dietr1ch]

I just want a fucking bus with a professional driver in it. Or even better, a subway

[socalgal2]

I do too, except for the fact that Waymos constantly break traffic laws.

[PacificSpecific]

Wait until you try a good train system. It's sublime.

[askl]

> We need this in europe.

No we don't. Your github says you're from Berlin, why the hell would you ever need a taxi in your life?

Someone should just find a cure for for the fear techbros have of being near poor people.

[jFriedensreich]

I don't live in Berlin, but even if: have you ever taken public transport in less mainstream lines? Apart from nothing working and connections taking forever and operations stopping at night, horrible signage that lets you stress even more, you sit next to human excrements, hooligans coming from football games, nazis wanting to beat you up, stink, rude music and beggers. I sometimes miss it for sentimental value, but compared to a world of robots driving us with relaxing music in a clean and safe space i know what future I want.

[jstummbillig]

Everyone has the "fear" of being near other people, regardless of their affluence. That's why apartments are not built for 20 but got 2-5 people and doors exist. I don't see why it must be a rich people thing when it comes to self driving cars. Could also become super interesting by making remoter areas more serviceable.

[calmoo]

I literally got a taxi today in Berlin because the trains were on strike, and the other day because the trains and trams were broken due to ice. You really can’t think of valid uses for a taxi?

[tialaramex]

Taxis are also public transport and so their provision in cities is in fact part of the transport fabric. Since there must be taxis, why not improve them?

This isn't about poor people, at least for me, I'd much rather be alone than with Elon fucking Musk. If I want to hang out with people I will choose when and who. The least good bit of being in a taxi is small talk with the driver.

[belter]

Waymo is not solving driving, it is closer to a sophisticated Disney Parkland ride. It is running inside a tightly constrained Operational Design Domain:

- Geofenced areas

- HD pre-mapped roads

- Curated infrastructure

- Remote ops fallback

This is not general autonomy, it is highend automation inside a controlled distribution. The system degrades exactly where humans do not: construction, unmapped lane shifts, police manually directing traffic, chaotic mixed behavior.

A cop overriding a light is not an “edge case”, it is a semantic and social reasoning problem that current perception stacks still do not robustly solve. It works because the world is pre modeled, not because the car understands driving.

Scaling that beyond a few mapped US suburbs into Europe is a totally different problem. Dont get fooled by Wall Street stock pumping.

[guiomie]

Am I in the Tesla stock subreddit?

"Scaling that beyond a few mapped US suburbs into Europe is a totally different problem." If you consider SF and LA suburbs, than Europe is a suburb.

[UebVar]

Roads are not solving transportation, they are closer to a sophisticated trace track. Roads are a constrained Operational Design Domain:

- Geofenced areas

- pre-build structures

- Curated infrastructure

- fallback to gravel in times of the inevitable event of maintenance.

This is not general transportation, it is a highend infrastructure inside a controlled environment. The system degrades exactly where humans/horses do not: River crossings, Creeks, steep hillsides, marshes, beaches.

A river flooding a road is not and "edge case", it a usual occurrence, and a problem that roads do robustly solve. It works due to extensive maintenance, not because the asphalt can actually deal with water.

Scaling that beyond a few mapped US suburbs into Europe is a totally different problem. Dont get fooled by Wall Street stock pumping.

[tokioyoyo]

They’re currently testing them in weird ass tiny streets here in Tokyo. I have a feeling you haven’t been in a Waymo?

[kentm]

I’m pretty sure people vastly overstate how important “HD pre-mapped roads” are to Waymo.

[enraged_camel]

Most of this comment was written by an LLM. There are certain tells, such as the tone, as well as usage of “ for quotations instead of the much more common ". I think you added the last couple of sentences.