AIBU to think we don’t want driverless taxis?

Max Planck can be leveraged here. (I remember hearing this when my dads friend was saying that no one would wear a digital watch ....)

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with"

How did people get city to city before cars ?

Again, I am saying it will catch on, but I don't think people have seen the pattern in that everything comes along for nothing, to "save us" time/money/learning skills, whatever, then before we know it we are completely reliant on it as all other options are obsolete. By design.

In Brum, I haven't had to wait more than 3 minutes for a regular uber.

Granted that's mainly 9-5.

I mean in terms of moving towards a society where people own fewer things - the idea is generally that if you have self driving cars, rather than everyone owning a car that is sitting parked 80%+ of the time, everyone pays to use cars as a service.

This argument rests on everyone staying in the same city all the time. People who have cars in London don't often drive them in London, they have them so they can visit friends/relatives outside London or for work if they need to travel. It's quite possible that it wouldn't reduce car ownership as much as people think.

In terms of safety a poll of people working in A.I. in 2023 found that half of them thought there was about a 10% chance that A.I. would make the human race extinct, but I'm absolutely not sure if that's a plus or minus for driverless cabs.

I think you are still imagining a future where people "own" personal transport.

Which I am not. For all sorts of reasons, but mainly because for well over 99% of recorded history it has been the exception rather than the rule.

If 100% of the population owned cars, there might be a case to be made. But notice how - ever since the idea of the automobile was developed, no nation on earth has been able to abandon public transport. Not even the US.

A fleet of driverless cars - mainly taxis - could well be the saviour of the High Street, if all the whinges about parking are honest.

I can recall a very similar debate about 15 years ago when "apps" were starting to be a thing. Apparently nobody wanted them. They would never take off. People would always feel more comfortable doing things over the phone, or in person.

The of course about 40 years ago, nobody wanted a computer at home.

Before that, this "television" thing was never going to catch on.

Before that, "wireless" ?

How about those lunatics building locomotives when we had a perfectly good canal network.

Canals ? What's wrong with roads, you idiots.

For women I think they’d be safer than getting into an uber.

That's mainly because Ubers are very badly regulated. I don't think driverless cabs would be the great revolution in women's safety it's being sold as.

How long might she have to wait, possibly on her own, before one arrives to pick her up? How many will there have to be driving around in order for one to arrive quickly? Thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions? What would happen if someone was lying in wait and forced their way into the taxi with a lone woman? I think I would feel more secure on a bus TBH

I'm not saying they won't take off, just that they will be controlled ultimately by a minority of people, like the tech bros, which restricts choice and competition. In a decade they may well sell of old stock to jobless taxi drivers but you won't be able to hold them accountable if you can't properly update it without giving them thousands upon thousands for the latest road safety uploads.

What was the point of having a car ? They needed a man with a red flag to walk in front of them not really.

I think where I live a driverless taxi might be safer as at least it'll obey the road rules.

I think I've only been in a taxi once since being hurtled down the m5 at 90mph with a driver who was using his phone and was consistently refusing to go to the correct train station meaning 2 of us would have been stranded in the early hours miles from where we needed to be. If I'd wanted to be on the m5 I would have drove myself. I had a train ticket. He eventually decided to go to the correct station when I threatened to report him but I was an awful experience.

Then don't get in. We'll enjoy them.

It’s my idea of a nightmare. I’d rather walk then get in one of those

I don't see the actual point of them to be honest. If I'm correct,you need to have a full driver's license to travel in a driverless car,so straight away that rules out anyone who doesn't have one. Considering that people who can't/won't drive are the ones most likely to be wanting a cab,it seems a bit bizarre.

I am sure a lot of people had reasons why these "automobile" things would never take off either.

We managed to put a man on the moon, for fucks sake. Nearly sixty years ago. Why does anyone struggle to imagine a self driving car. Surely not everyone can be that dim ?

Well since all the uBers I've used have internal cameras and microphones (and it's a selling point on the app) then if we join all the pieces, anyone damaging teh inside of the car will be known via their card details needed to hail a ride, and just find themselves relieved of the cost via the T&Cs.

And then they can wonder why they can't get a ride next time with their no-star rating.

It's really sweet of so many folk on this thread to worry about the future employment prospects of the drivers. However anyone who can cross 3 oceans in a dingy and put up with the British is made of hardy stuff.

There are hundreds of sex attack on female passengers by taxi drivers each year. I would much rather my DD used a driver-less taxi.

I am SO looking forward to driverless taxis and cars for everyone, humans are horribly unsafe on the roads and utterly unpredictable, driverless cars get better every month and will only continue to improve. Never having to make chit chat with a stranger, no woman terrified of being raped by an Uber driver, and when its your own car, you can have a few drinks and make it home safely or get in the car with a broken leg knowing you don't have to drive.

There are no negatives to driverless cars. Can't wait.

That’s at the moment, not necessarily forever. Technology becomes more accessible once it been tested and then proven over a period of time. The taxi driver reckoned that eventually self driving cars would become the norm, not just for taxiing, they’ll be available for anyone to buy and then used for personal use or business purposes. Obviously it’s just the start and that’s a long way off, I was just offering a counter viewpoint to the opinion that all taxi drivers would oppose self driving taxis and that they will be left jobless as a result.

I mean do you expect Google to run server space for free?

Unfortunately even a higher proportion of those who remain and are not using driverless vehicles will be those unfit to hold a licence.

the loss of skill...

As everyone was excited when the internet came out and crypto. Only a couple of men make billions and trillions while millions lose their jobs and more people live in relative poverty. We haven't even really started on the AI journey yet and we can already see women being disproportionately affected. What happens when the systems break down and no one knows how to drive or you have to pay thousands to get to hospital because the ambulance is bust so a specialist ""driver"" has to come and collect patients?

If anyone has Google and been foolish enough to upload photos and then been scammed into keeping them there by paying increasing amounts every month (for what they thought was a free service) and suddenly realised they can't download all images, just 32 at a time, you might have a taster of an idea of the frustrations these events can cause. We all know companies start off free then charge when reliance goes up.

But they would have to pay for the updates to be downloaded and any issues they cause - if they are hacked and kill someone or are frequently driving into other cars...I don't think people would support them if they were left to individuals to update regularly so that they worked properly and weren't hazardous.

Why just older and disabled.
Loads of people will be excited about not having to learn to drive, put in for a test etc, retake again etc.
The cost, the stress.

Driving instructors and examiner's will be a thing if the last one day. No waiting for taxis Will al be very expensive at first though.