Ride-hail driver David Ireland is afraid of moving around the city with a robotaxi: Why do robots in the city are better than humans?
Take a walk around San Francisco this summer and you’ll see something curious: Jaguar SUVs and Chevrolet hatchbacks driving around with no one inside. The ghostly vehicles are owned and operated by Google spinoff Waymo and General Motors subsidiary Cruise. Soon there will likely be a lot more of them, because last week, the companies received a state regulator’s permission to operate paid robotaxi services anywhere in the city around the clock, after years and billions spent on testing and development.
The San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance as well as several other labor groups criticized the companies for attempting to lure their members with higher-paying jobs. Asked what he thinks about robotaxi technology, ride-hail driver David Ireland was unequivocal: “It sucks!! It will take our jobs and income from us.” But he doesn’t spend too much time worrying about the robots, because he doesn’t think they will truly be ready to operate as a service for several years. Many drivers predicted—perhaps hopefully—that they’d be retired before self-driving cars could come for their jobs.
Sometimes lawbreaking is the only option. Ride-hail driver Glauco Marinho recalls picking up passengers on New Year’s Eve near San Francisco’s City Hall. Drivers had to make a technically forbidden U-turn when the street was closed for a party. Marinho had to make his around a robotaxi in the middle of the road with hazard lights on, apparently paralyzed by its own lawfulness. There was not enough space to maneuver around the stopped car as a group of drunk people walked back and forth.
Ilina, the Waymo spokesperson, acknowledged that being a good driver occasionally means being a scofflaw. She says that the company’s robotaxis crosses a double yellow line in order to maintain a safe distance from other road users.
Being a good ride-hail driver requires being an expert at reading not just roads, but people. After Popovics spent four hours trying to scrub projectile vomit off the ceiling of his car, he hired a cleaning service and started paying closer attention to passengers’ intoxication levels. Now, after greeting each passenger, he asks them how they’re doing. He says that he wants to know about them. I would like to hear them speak to find out whether they are slurring. And he’s always equipped with plastic bags, in case someone becomes queasy.
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Cruise has a cleaning fee policy and charges up to $150 for “extensive liquid and smelly messes,” including vomit. Humans use cameras in the vehicles of the company to determine if there is a need for a cleaning before or after riding, and robotaxis are cleaned when they return to the base for charging or maintenance.
Opponents are not likely to take these major changes lying down. In the weeks leading up to the CPUC vote, several videos went viral of people placing orange cones on the hoods of the vehicles, effectively disabling them. The week was called the “Week of Cone” and was meant to show how easy it is to mistake high tech cars for ordinary ones.
Julia Ilina says that there will continue to be a need for drivers over the coming years as it scales up its fleet. Kyle Vogt, CEO of Cruise, said in an interview that his company and other companies have taken longer than they hoped to get the technology working as a boon for professional drivers. “Almost a nice side effect,” he said, “is a lot of people know this is coming.”
Other drivers doubt most passengers will even notice the difference between the old and new cars. “Most people want to come in and stare at their phones,” says Gabe Ets-Hokin. They treat me like a robot, anyway.
Some who know this is coming simply shrug—several ride-hail drivers told WIRED that they think the jobs have become too crappy to fight for, because earnings have declined over the years and there’s no reward for sticking around. Sam Gormus says he does not lose sleep over being replaced by a machine. “I could just quit and find something else.”
The day after California regulators gave a major victory to the driverless car companies, they decided to celebrate by breaking down in the middle of a busy street.
According to several local news reports, 10 Cruise vehicles were unable to leave the intersection and sat in a traffic jam near the Outside Lands Music Festival. According to the company, the music festival caused issues with its vehicles. The overload of cellular networks made it difficult for Cruise’s vehicles to send and receive information.
And it was a sign of more conflict to come, as cities that serve as ground zero for this science experiment face pushback from states that set the rules of the road for driverless cars and seek out conformity in how the technology is regulated.
The public opinion of the technology will degrade regardless of which company is having the problems, according to a professor who has studied the topic for decades. “When a large adverse event eventually happens, all that pent up public opinion is going to make it much more difficult for companies to deal with the situation.”
Other cities will follow. Waymo has its sights set on Los Angeles and New York City, while Cruise is testing its vehicles in Miami and Austin, Texas. The companies are under enormous pressure to turn on the money spigots after their parent companies have invested tens of billions of dollars for more than a decade with very little money flowing back into their coffers.
The robotaxi dilemma is also shining a light on the divided way we regulate cars in the US. The federal government creates vehicle safety rules, leaving the states to license drivers, register vehicles, and enforce the rules of the road. Minor infrastructure decisions and help direct traffic are the only things left for cities to do.
The companies can do themselves a favor by reaching out to more people. Emergency vehicles being damaged is not likely to help get over the hearts and minds of residents who you are trying to serve. San Francisco officials want more information on the incidents in which the robotaxis shut down in the middle of the street, as well as crashes and vehicle miles traveled to the state and federal government. So far, the companies have been silent on this matter.
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“More transparency and improvement on issues the public cares about are essential,” Koopman said. It’s easier to lose trust with a single bad event than it is to regain it afterwards as technology won’t succeed without trust.
The next phase is likely to be highly litigious. Peskin wants the city to slow down or walk away from the expanded deployment of robot cars. Requests for another hearing or vote could be part of that. The commission is under the control of the governor and can be sued by the city.
Cities will always be at a disadvantage in these types of fights. California, in particular, has shown a willingness to set aside local concerns about traffic, labor, and safety for the unimpeded progress of Big Tech companies. In 2020, voters approved a ballot measure to allow companies like Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash to continue treating their workers like independent contractors rather than employees.
There was a lot of support from the people who were disabled, distrustful of human drivers or did not want to seem to be burying their heads in the sand when the new technology became available. After all, disruption and inconvenience tend to go hand in hand, said Raj Rajkumar, a robotics professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Think of the construction of roads and highways, or the installation of natural gas lines.
“All were major societal changes and caused a lot of inconveniences and discomfort, but we cannot live without them today,” he said. Positives get the headlines and strong passions get the attention. But day-to-day convenience and usability for many customers (assuming that this comes to pass) will begin to triumph.”