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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

#221

Post by tchaffee »

3cats-in-a-coat wrote: post #168
tchaffee wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 poc…

I already mentioned the problem of masssive wealth gaps indirectly. Us workers need to organize to recapture the profit that used to be shared with us. UPS workers just negotiated $170,000 TC. I think that's enough to live a nice life, especially if two people are contributing to a household.

Productivity has increased by a lot. It's up to voters and workers to get their fair share of those gains. The uber wealthy are not going to willingly give it up.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#222

Post by xorcist »

3cats-in-a-coat wrote: post #181
ForHackernews wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds to me like you're repeating dogma, but even if it's true, that's fine by me. I'd rather my union steward was getting rich (for some low value of 'rich') than my CEO. Only one of them is on my side.

It’s interesting, because this is how your response sounded to me. Is there no dogma about how everyone should group together and take back the means of production? There is a very large, prominent movement about this response to capitalism. My point is, that theory and practice differ, and when they differ it’s not the practice that is wrong, but the theory. Every time people banded together to take the means of pro…

Your theory, which you may find so evident to you that you won't bother saying it out loud, is that unions are bad for capitalism.

The real world during the 1900s, if anything proved the opposite. It's not that all unions by definition always are great, that could be said for anything and should be obvious. It's that treating workers as an integral part of the business, with the obligations that come with rights, wins in the marketplace every time.

All rich countries, at least in the western hemisphere, became rich because of worker's movements, not in spite of them. Other countries have been pushed into the businesses with the slimmest margins where there is no innovation.

The truth is that innovation and worker's rights won. When arguing that an ideological map is right despite real world data, at least make those arguments against the same reality as we live in, so everyone involved will have a chance to understand how the ideal system measures up against their experience.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#223

Post by bitsage »

notahacker wrote: post #122
nwiswell wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have what, like 50+ years of certainty as to how dangerous people are as drivers Yes, the answer is "very". Over one percent (1 in 93, National Safety Council, 2021[1]) of Americans will die in a car crash. That is insane. The data so far is clear that autonomous vehicles are safer, and it isn't close. > Also “meatbags” has the same tone as “sportsball” imo. We're comparing humans to computers. Sue me. [1]: http…

> The data so far is clear that autonomous vehicles are safer, and it isn't close. The data so far on fatality rates is near nonexistent. There' a fatality every 75 million miles in the US with a human at the wheel, with significant proportions of those fatalities considered to be humans operating so far below the threshold for acceptable human driving we jail them for it. Waymo hit 1m autonomous miles this year.

I’ve seen many people in this thread insinuate driverless cars are as safe as human drivers despite the vehicles being subjected to a subset of conditions the average US driver is. I’m surprised to see such disingenuous statements on here.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#224

Post by sofixa »

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…

> We can rethink our cities and move parking to the periphery

Just moving parking to the periphery won't make American cities better or more walkable.

> 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

If you're assuming that self-driving cars will be perfect and segregated, conditions will always be perfect (e.g. no pedestrians or bikes slipping), etc. etc. etc. Why would you?

> Eliminating the tedious and dangerous task of driving is an enormous benefit to humanity

The vast majority of driving can be replaced by already existing, proven and drastically more efficient tech - public transit.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#225

Post by ghaff »

ForHackernews wrote: post #171
tchaffee wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> UPS drivers now get paid close to $200k. The key being that UPS drivers are unionized . If your argument is that the increasingly obsolete humans need to band together and take wealth back from the owners of the robots, then I agree.

And being efficient enough and providing a service that's valued enough that both the companies doing the shipping and the people receiving the packages are willing to absorb the labor costs. If residential delivery cost a lot more/was less convenient (as it generally used to be), people would be much more inclined to just go into stores.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#226

Post by tchaffee »

ForHackernews wrote: post #171
tchaffee wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> UPS drivers now get paid close to $200k. The key being that UPS drivers are unionized . If your argument is that the increasingly obsolete humans need to band together and take wealth back from the owners of the robots, then I agree.

Yes, we mostly agree. The part I disagree with is humans being obsolete. We don't manually weave cloth anymore. Which is why we can afford far more clothing than folks 100 years ago. The jobs are there. That most of the profit from that work goes to the uber wealthy is the problem.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#227

Post by clsec »

stu2b50 wrote: post #165
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.

No, the California Public Utilities Commission just approved them to take fares. Unfortunately San Franciscans have had very little, if anything, to say in any of this.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#228

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

LeanderK wrote: post #118
drcode wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems pretty clear to me (if you've been to SF recently) that autonomous cars react to pedestrians quicker and are much more careful around pedestrians than human drivers. You can certainly take the attitude "I will only agree with having autonomous cars on the street once they are provably 100000000x safer than a human" but I don't think that matches most people's view on what constitutes safety. Also, that goes…

> We already know that SUVs are more dangerous for pedestrians, but I think most of us agree that making SUVs illegal for this reason would not be a good idea, and is against the American ethos. As a non-american that doesn't own a car it's not that unreasonable for me :) At least banning SUVs that are excessively unsafe for pedestrians in a collision. Or maybe just ban it in cities where some walkability is expected…

> I just don't want to die by getting hit by a car

Most Americans couldn't care less about pedestrians. All they care about is where to park their car.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#229

Post by belligeront »

Diffusion3166 wrote: post #197

Am I the only one finding it hard to be excited for this? It seems like automated taxis: 0. Encourage the use of cars in cities rather than public transit & walkability. 1. Centralize wealth by replacing payments to many drivers with payments to one large company. 2. Allow for further surveillance of individuates. It seems likely that Google will eventually create ad inventory by adding screens to the cars and incorp…

I also believe they will increase congestion in cities since when occupants switch from drivers to riders, they are less affected by the costs of road congestion (congested roads may mean riders get to their destinations slower, but because they are no longer driving, people may make extra trips where previously they would say "I don't want to make that trip now because driving during rush hour is too stressful").

But the public will face negative externalities of greater congestion (noise, pollution, slower travel times for busses & walking).

Without congestion pricing and right of ways for bikes, walking, and transit, automated taxis seem like a way to double down on a space inefficient mode of travel.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#230

Post by clsec »

jfoster wrote: post #136

> we tried to duplicate the experience a tourist might have bopping around the city in a driverless taxi. Tourists are probably going to be the last cohort to get access to Waymo.

Why is that? It's a fully public taxi service that will probably be heavily marketed in Fisherman's Wharf/Pier 39.
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