NOPE. NOPE NOPE NOPE. This is how it starts! They earn your trust by playing your music and telling you the weather in the morning (Alexa), then they’re causing you to miss your flight as they do donuts in a parking lot, before you know it, this happens:
As far as I’m concerned this guy can consider himself lucky that all he got was a little car sick.
My wife and I actually got a look at these self-driving Waymos up close and personal in Scottsdale last February. The first one we saw drove past the restaurant we were eating at. Seeing a car driving with NO ONE in it was freaky enough. A few days later I pulled up next to one at a red light. Nothing quite prepares you for looking to your left/right and seeing a car next to you with no driver. Will it know when the light changes? Is it going to run me off of the road? Do I need to run IT off of the road?? Everything turned out fine and I actually got honked at for missing the green light because I was staring at the Waymo. Still, though, kind of unsettling.
We did a little research after seeing the first one and it sounds like they are ONLY doing laps to the airport and back for the time being, but you know at some point these things are going to be in every city in America. Not for me. I want a human being who smells vaguely like weed picking me up in my Uber or Lyft, thank you very much. Take your technology that is probably safer in every possible way and shove it.
PS: One thing about not having a driver, you wouldn’t have to fake being deaf if you didn’t want to talk to your driver:
Comments