For the foreseeable future, a driver will be an important component of any ride-hailing solution, whether it's a taxi, a black car, or something more informal,

For the foreseeable future, a driver will be an important component of any ride-hailing solution, whether it's a taxi, a black car, or something more informal, and whether the dispatcher is an algorithm or a company's employee. This is really about the taxi companies and the dispatchers, not the drivers. Of course, driverless cars are likely to someday displace the drivers. But the taxi companies would be thrilled to be in charge of fleets of driverless cars, I'm sure. And that's a long way off. As has been said innumerable times here on HN, short-run city driving is likely to be among the last places to get swept up by driverless technologies.