2 pizzas, a small order of breadsticks, and wanted to splurge and get cinnamon sticks.
Pizzas are a “Buy one get one deal!” at 13 bucks a pizza. Figured what the hell, I’ll splurge on desert then with the deal. Get to checkout… hold on a minute… 50 dollars for pizza?! Wait a minute 80 dollars after fees and taxes?!
Usually I only use Doordash for finding something, then I order direct from the store. I just saw the sweet “buy one get one” deal and thought eh, fine I’m here. Right, that’s why I stopped using door dash. I’m not spending 80 dollars on freaking pizza. I’ll just go pick it up and spend a quarter of that price.
At least I would have saved the $3 dollar delivery fee. Phew. Thanks DoorDash.
The benefit to self-driving cars is self-evident though. There’s no argument that they wouldn’t be better than human drivers in theory. Not only for safety, but for traffic, parking, cost, etc.
The only thing holding them back a this point is refinement. They have already proven that in at least three cities, they are mile for mile safer than human driven vehicles.
Waymo has gone from 1 city, to 3, to now pushing out to 11 in a few years. I wouldn’t be surprised if it doubled 5 times again in the next 10 years. That would put it in just under 200 cities by 2035.
The first iPhone only sold a million units in the first year, but two years later there were 25 million iPhones and they hit the 200 million mark by year 5.
I can see the benefits but I can also see the downsides. Where do all the people who have driving jobs go? Do they just stop working as many might be too old to train for something new.
Where does liability fall for accidents?
What about cyberattacks? These are all things that need to be considered.
The first argument is a non-starter, professions have come and gone for all of human history. Where did all the people who raised and trained horses go when cars came out? Where did all the people go who made buggies and coaches? What about people who lost their jobs to construction equipment like excavators? What about switchboard operators at telephone companies?
The economy will re-organize itself to adapt to the newly available labour. Don’t get me wrong, individuals are going to be absolutely devastated by this, but not replacing someone who’s doing a job that can be automated is no different than having them dig a ditch and fill it back in. It’s never a good idea to hold back technology just to keep jobs around. This path leads to the Amish.
Liability for accidents has already been sorted out for 100% autonomous cars, it’s the vehicle manufacturer’s fault. For most of the current ones on the road, they are modified existing vehicles, so the manufacturer would be said to be the self-driving company (like Waymo) though once the software is built in from the factory it will be on Ford or Nissan or whatever likely in partnership with a software vendor. They may insure themselves, but likely only against catastrophic situations rather than day-to-day accidents.
They are definitely considering cyberattacks.