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NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

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Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#161

Post by edude03 »

_acco wrote: post #14

> My ride was so smooth, the novelty began to wear off, turning a trip to the future into just another journey across town. This is the only nod in the article to how futuristic and revelatory this innovation. The journalists sound so bored. I wonder if this is a function of how “around the corner” this tech has felt for so long? Have we somehow become jaded to this innovation before it has even arrived? Were journal…

The goal is that it should be boring. When you take an uber normally you really only pay attention to the driver if they're really bad at driving or they're talking to you - so being bored by a self driving car to me is high praise

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#162

Post by tchaffee »

3cats-in-a-coat wrote: post #151
pirate787 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your Luddite take is profoundly wrong, and has been consistently proven wrong at every single technological turn in history. We have more robots than even today, and yet a labor SHORTAGE. Eliminating the tedious and dangerous task of driving is an enormous benefit to humanity that will save 30,000+ lives a year in the US alone. We will end the misery caused to millions from injury and tragedy, and the billions of dol…

You’re not thinking through what you’re talking about, unfortunately that’s typical. Think about it, how can there be a “SHORTAGE of jobs”, when we have over 8 billion people on this planet? Are we running out of people in general? No. Is everyone employed and happy? No. So we are short of the kind of increasingly mythical people with 20 years experience in some tech that came out yesterday, we’re short of people wit…

Your reasoning seems logical at first glance so I can understand why you would come to your conclusions.

History shows you to be wrong. It doesn't take a high IQ to use a machine to hugely increase your productivity. And in some cases the machine is easier to operate. I'll take a car over a horse any day.

Salaries for low skill jobs in the US are going up. UPS drivers now get paid close to $200k. The labor shortage is not just for highly skilled, high IQ people.

New technology has only ever resulted in people doing more productive work. That might change. No one can predict the future. But based on history we will continue to see quality of life improve thanks to productivity increases, and employment to stay high.

The one change I would like to see is workers organizing to capture more of the profit and productivity changes they help create. UPS drivers did it. More of that means we all share in the wealth of productivity increases.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#163

Post by jumpkick »

fiksie wrote: post #157
3cats-in-a-coat wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re not thinking through what you’re talking about, unfortunately that’s typical. Think about it, how can there be a “SHORTAGE of jobs”, when we have over 8 billion people on this planet? Are we running out of people in general? No. Is everyone employed and happy? No. So we are short of the kind of increasingly mythical people with 20 years experience in some tech that came out yesterday, we’re short of people wit…

Your points are: - People are doomed after driverless system breakthrough - 5 diploma requirement for a new job - only rich with benefit from technology - whoever thinks this is not neat thinks they are smarter than average Joe How does one even address this?

The first point you’ve extracted is too narrowly focused. I’m not OP but I believe they were making a general point about increasing automation, not a specific point about driverless cars.

I agree with everything the OP has written. I had a similar revelation myself not long ago. I think that I’m one of the smart ones and that I’ll okay, I’ll thrive even. But what about stupid people? Stupid people deserve to have happy lives too.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#164

Post by stu2b50 »

jfoster wrote: post #140

> I wondered what would happen if I touched the wheel, so I grabbed it as the Waymo merged from one lane to another. The car ignored me and drove on. Surprised they admit to this, considering earlier in the article they mention being instructed not to touch the wheel.

It’s a good thing to test as a reporter. There are too many people for at least one person not to do something dumb, or fall onto while doing something dumb, so it’s good to know nothing would happen.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#165

Post by stu2b50 »

orzig wrote: post #154

What took them so long? Is “new“ a core concept of “news“, and hasn’t this been possible (in select cities) for many months?

It only recently went from “closed beta for free” to “charges anyone who wants to get on”. SF just cleared them to take fares.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#166

Post by jokteur »

zdragnar wrote: post #39
barbariangrunge wrote: post #21

But… why couldn’t we just build more and better trains?

Trains aren't a panacea for transportation. They work well in some areas, less well in others, and not at all in many. You still have to get to and from the stations themselves, and the dependability of transportation arriving on time and proximity to your destination plays a big factor. The metro area I went to college in had a light rail train that ran from downtown to a popular tourist destination. To get there, t…

You are underestimating how much trains and public transportation can do. Public transportation is abyssimal in the US, so I get why you think that it may not solve many problems.

If you take a look at Switzerland which did public transportation right, you will see that even in low densities areas, it is very much possible to get around by public transport. The canton of Graubünden (area: 7105.44 km2, density: 28/km2) has more train lines and bus lines than the city of Atlanta (area: 353.04 km2, density: 771.3/km2). Switzerland has a lot of tiny villages, evenly spread around. We don't have crazy dense cities, and certainly not large cities.

While public transport does not solve every trip and every commute, it is a solution for a significant percentage of the population. You can get to remote areas for hiking, leisure, ... You can find bus lines that connect one village of 30 people to another village of 100 people. They may not be frequent (4x a day), but they allow for tourist to go hike to remote areas, visit nice places, ... Also, public transit is clean here and very safe.

For some numbers: a decent amount of people commute by public transport (up to 50% in certain areas), and an even larger percentage of people use public transport for leisure activities (>70%).

In an ideal world, you would have decent public transit inside cities and around, pedestrian friendly cities, bike sharing, and fery vew (robo)taxis in dense areas. This makes the cities confortable to live in (less noise and polution). Also, intercity transit is very important (by train, highspeed train or plane). Then, in rural areas you would have robotaxis that can get you anywhere you want. The remaining vehicles on the road should be work related vehicles.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#167

Post by stu2b50 »

rxyz wrote: post #142
1024core wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an example, riding public transit from Marina Green to Beach Chalet takes 1 hour in Muni: https://goo.gl/maps/8mPmP8ZsC61c2CL5A and involves a change of buses. Is it worth it to spend $20 and do it in 1/3 the time in a clean and safe setting? To many, yes.

Why public transport in one of the richest cities in the world isn't clean and safe?

Muni is actually fairly clean and safe, it just goes nowhere.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#168

Post by 3cats-in-a-coat »

tchaffee wrote: post #162
3cats-in-a-coat wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re not thinking through what you’re talking about, unfortunately that’s typical. Think about it, how can there be a “SHORTAGE of jobs”, when we have over 8 billion people on this planet? Are we running out of people in general? No. Is everyone employed and happy? No. So we are short of the kind of increasingly mythical people with 20 years experience in some tech that came out yesterday, we’re short of people wit…

Your reasoning seems logical at first glance so I can understand why you would come to your conclusions. History shows you to be wrong. It doesn't take a high IQ to use a machine to hugely increase your productivity. And in some cases the machine is easier to operate. I'll take a car over a horse any day. Salaries for low skill jobs in the US are going up. UPS drivers now get paid close to $200k. The labor shortage i…

What quality of life? Most families need three or more jobs to cover basic needs of life like housing, healthcare, food and travel. Salaries are rising. The value of those salaries is dropping.

We are more interconnected and more surrounded by tech. This is not the same as higher quality of life. It means more tech. Which is the subject. Oh I can watch someone pretend to be NPC on the other side of the globe on a pocket box. Quality of life.

I think it’s telling people want a vacation away from tech and “modern life”. Why would they go for lower quality of life as a vacation?

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#169

Post by ForHackernews »

pirate787 wrote: post #149
3cats-in-a-coat wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The realization a self-driving car is not infinitely exciting is how bubbles pop. This particular bubble was formed mostly by Tesla hyping up the coming of their fleet of millions of robotaxis that will turn every other car immediately obsolete, “like owning a horse”, and Teslas will 100x in price, and Tesla will be the most valuable company in the world. And all that, over a product they still can’t ship (and won’t)…

Your Luddite take is profoundly wrong, and has been consistently proven wrong at every single technological turn in history. We have more robots than even today, and yet a labor SHORTAGE. Eliminating the tedious and dangerous task of driving is an enormous benefit to humanity that will save 30,000+ lives a year in the US alone. We will end the misery caused to millions from injury and tragedy, and the billions of dol…

Do we have a labor shortage, or do we have a shortage at the wages companies are prepared to pay? There's a largely unexamined assumption built into capitalism that there exists a market clearing wage where humans will be incentivized to provide labor and owners will reap a profit. But what if that assumption is breaking down? My most "valuable" skill is writing software, but it may soon be the case that ChatGPT 9 can do that much better and cheaper than me.

What happens when we have nothing profitable to offer capitalism?

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#170

Post by jillesvangurp »

barbariangrunge wrote: post #21

But… why couldn’t we just build more and better trains?

Sure, but it would cost a few billion. For just modestly sized stretch of rail and a couple of stations and trains.

Waymo is of course not cheap but they can do a lot with a few billion. Rail just isn't cheap. Privately funded rail tracks are basically not a thing in most countries. Just too expensive to be interesting to normal investors. Especially if they are looking for ROI measured in years rather than decades/centuries. Governments spend on rail because of the wider economic effects it has on their economies. Not because exploiting rail roads is particularly lucrative or even profitable.

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