I'm not too worried about it. Yeah, it's bad that people don't understand how labor organizing works. It's bad they're not willing to stand up to shitty employers and take a little risk to make life better. But in this particular case the fear is totally illusory. It's just another silicon valley conman selling some warped "dream" that probably won't actually materialize[1]. "Autonomous Vehicles" are nowhere near production ready, and they're not going to be any time soon. Wake me up when a serious truck or car manufacturer starts rolling them out en masse, then I might start to get worried about it. Until then, it's just about the same category as flying cars--sure, we have these hexacopter contraptions which can (barely) lift a single person for 20min. Not interesting.

[1] Here's how you know:

  “Our goal is not to make money out of this data,” Naga said. “We want to democratize it.”

▲ JumpCrisscross 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> Wake me up when a serious truck or car manufacturer starts rolling them out en masse, then I might start to get worried about it

I think enough people haven’t been in a Waymo to realise that the technology is basically here, and that we’re like 10 to 20 years of doubling away from AVs doing tens of millions of trips a day in America. By the time anyone has invested in true mass production of AVs, we’ll already be so far down that path that the policy deck will be dealt.

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jcgrillo 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I've been to san francisco before, it doesn't even snow there

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JumpCrisscross 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> it doesn't even snow there

My Subaru can lane keep in a Wyoming blizzard. There isn’t some unsolved technical problem with snow for any system with radar, i.e. anyone who isn’t Tesla.

Keep in mind that like a fifth of Americans and half of humans live somewhere is rarely or never snows.

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jcgrillo 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I guess once they demonstrate it working smoothly and profitably in cities like Boston, NY, Detroit, etc. I'll be more concerned? Given that it doesn't really even work too well in places with good signage, lane markings, etc--not to mention no weather--I'm not worried yet. And frankly I'm done with "the future". If it doesn't deliver results now, it's not real. Until it's real, it's nothing to get alarmed about.

	▲	JumpCrisscross an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> cities like Boston Couldn't come soon enough [1]. > Given that it doesn't really even work too well in places with good signage, lane markings, etc Works fine in Phoenix, Miami and Los Angeles. Plenty of neighbourhoods there have non-existent, defaced and degraded signage and markings. > Until it's real, it's nothing to get alarmed about I don't think there is anything to be alarmed about, period. Driving is a silly job when you think about it. We made these machines to do our bidding, not enslave us behind their wheels. My belief in a smooth roll-out is reinforced by those who would probably oppose AVs also not believing it's real. Once the first factory mass manufacturing AVs breaks ground, any limited local opposition can be preëmpted. [1] https://waymo.com/blog/shorts/back-to-boston/

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nradov an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

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