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Pretty key restrictions here: "though it may not charge riders, and a human safety driver must remain behind the wheel" This is basically greenlighting further
by mdorazio 7y ago
Pretty key restrictions here: "though it may not charge riders, and a human safety driver must remain behind the wheel"
This is basically greenlighting further testing on CA roads, not actual driverless taxis. I don't expect that to be legally available on CA roads for a couple more years.
- munk-a 7y agoThat is indeed key for restricting running a profitable business - but google could really build demand and public support by running these at a loss. If they're on the streets and commonly visible then they'll quickly be accepted as reality.
- dheera 7y agoAs a user I sure would love free taxis for a while.
- sprafa 7y agoFree with ads! And we to keep your eye tracking, sweat, weight and breathing sensor data for better ad localisation around the city! /sarcasm
- matz1 7y agoTo each of their own. I can monetize all of those? Great. I find it acceptable trade off.
- londons_explore 7y agoI would hand over all my email and bank statements to get unlimited free travel...
- dragonwriter 7y ago> Free with ads! Existing taxis are ad platforms and not free, so this is still an improvement.
- 100100010001 7y agoDo taxis sell your data: when/where they picked you up and dropped you off? Do they sell your facial features for facial recognition? If not, then it is not the same!
- Gigablah 7y agoDoes Google?
- munk-a 7y agoI don't know - do you? Additionally, do you know they never will? They're not collecting (AFAICT) facial information (though there is a camera in nearly all taxis, so it's possible) but it's hard to believe they aren't collecting route data even if it's just to place stands more efficiently to service commonly requested routes, at some point they might start selling that data... or they might be acquired and their acquirer might either sell off their data - or use their data internally for other purposes. In the modern world we really have a lot of fuzziness when it comes to how usage data is treated. There are lots of UX people that want to know how people are using sites to make them better - but that same data can be resold for quite creepy purposes.
- 100100010001 7y agoI do. They don’t. Google does tho.
- icebraining 7y agoWho's they? There are hundreds, if not thousands of taxi (and "ride-sharing") companies across the world. Which ones do you know about?
- throwaway713 7y agoI mean... I’d be fine with that honestly as long as it was stated up front.
- xenospn 7y ago“Just log in using your Facebook account to receive free rides!”
- sprafa 7y agoLol this is exactly what I imagine. With eye tracking!
- anticensor 7y agoNot needed. They can just do route advertising (car passes by and/or does things at a particular place to advertise a brand) personalised based on your audiovisual biometry. ZF is already working on self-driving stack, including moving parts and full SDV-TaaS infrastructure, and they support such an idea.
- munk-a 7y agoSo I have some general deep-seated objections to advertising due to the economic cost it leverages - taking an inefficient route, burning additional fuel to drive it and wasting someone's time, is absolutely ridiculous. How do the people working on this not revolt?
- icebraining 7y agoThere's probably nothing to revolt about yet, just a glint on some executives' eyes.
- dheera 7y agoMaybe they can pool you preferentially with friends of friends, too! And then there can be the LinkedIn version which pools you with potential hires/recruiters. Or the Github account version which pools Java and Python programmers together and livestreams the arguments to the Youtube account car ...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- viscanti 7y agoHow long would we have to wait for one? Free is great, but sometimes I'd pay for an alternative if there are limited Waymos on. I'm not sure that I'd want to wait 30+ minutes longer for the Waymo.
- tehlike 7y agoYou can still get lyft or uber.
- wefarrell 7y agoIt’s great for Google. No other company will have the opportunity to spend what they’re spending on testing and they will continue their lead.
- notus 7y agoHey you gotta take baby steps especially when trying to pave the way for new legislation. I'm just happy there is some movement this direction.
- IshKebab 7y agoA couple more decades you mean? We're still a long way from trusting driverless cars even in easy American suburbs.
- mdorazio 7y agoI'll put money on a truly driverless taxi service being available in at least two US cities in under 5 years. The key with driverless is to stop assuming that it has to work everywhere in all conditions or else it's useless. What's actually happening is that the cars are being trained for and tested in specific conditions and locations where they will roll out first (dry, sunny, well-maintained modern roads, etc.), then as the technology improves, the envelope will expand until at some point in the future they do actually work everywhere all the time.
- elif 7y agoThey can't charge riders, but to me that says they can, for instance charge corporations for making rides available to their employees or for their event. It also doesn't say to me that the safety driver has to be an employee. It could just be rider 0 on any given ride is required to be in the driver seat. This looks very profitable to me.
- killjoywashere 7y agoI very seriously doubt Waymo is going to let random riders sit in the driver’s seat. They’ve been paying maps drivers for ever. This endeavour is far to high-value to let some random whip a vehicle into a crowded sidewalk.
- elif 7y agoLike e.g. apple buys the service, and an apple employee chooses to override autonomous control with 3 co-workers in the car to joy-ride? I think "random" is the wrong descriptor for the scenario described
- riantogo 7y agoAnd how does the car get to rider 0?
- lquist 7y agoWhy shouldn't they be allowed to charge? Not sure I understand this provision.
- nothis 7y agoFoot in the door for not making Taxi/Uber drivers jobless? I expect some political backlash in the short term.