Lyft Launches a New Self-driving Division and Will Develop Its Own Autonomous Ride-hailing Technology (techcrunch.com) 56
An anonymous reader shares a report: Lyft is betting the future of the road centers on sharing autonomous vehicles. It aims to be at the forefront of that technology with a new self-driving division and a self-driving system car manufacturers could plug into their self-driving cars. The company expects to hire "hundreds" of people for the new division by the end of next year and has just signed a lease for 50,000-square-feet on the first floor of a Palo Alto facility where it plans to build out several labs and open testing spaces. The building Lyft refers to as "Level 5" will be developing its new "open self-driving platform" and a combination hardware and software system still in development. Lyft hopes auto manufacturers will then bring in a fleet of autonomous cars to its ride-hailing network. The plan is somewhat similar to one Uber announced earlier. Lyft's larger rival uses Volvo's XC90 to test its self-driving tech on the roads. Uber announced earlier this year it was also partnering with Daimler to operate self-driving cars on its network.
Re: Jobs of Last Resort all gone now (Score:5, Interesting)
There aren't any jobs left now. You can't see the big picture because you're currently employed, but as soon as you're laid off, you'll join the permanently jobless. There won't be a revolution. There won't be basic income. There will be the employed saying, why won't those jobless losers just get a job. Like you're doing, right now.
Re: (Score:2)
Why are there are help wanted signs? At minimum there should be a contract job to take down the signs. At $5 per sign you would make a lot of money.
There are two reasons. One is that people like to collect job applications so that they have people to call if they fire someone, someone quits, someone gets hit by a bus etc. The other is that there are jobs out there that nobody can live on, or even afford to take. You know, the guy who needs a dishwasher two nights a week, for four hours a night, to fill a hole in his schedule, and doesn't give a shit that it's going to cost you half the pay just getting back and forth. He's happy to put up a sign and ju
Re: Jobs of Last Resort all gone now (Score:4, Insightful)
There aren't any jobs left now.
There are plenty of jobs. But the jobs on offer all have at least one of the following problems:
1. They pay you what you are worth, rather than what you think you are worth.
2. They don't let you follow your dreams of self-actualization.
3. The require you to have actual skills.
4. You have to move.
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The Pizza Hut next to the hospital I work at is advertising positions starting at $15/hour.
Really? What's the catch?
I'm betting it's either a high-cost-of-living area, an area where it's hard to find good workers at all, or the working conditions aren't exactly great.
Okay, there's a small chance that the management really is forward-thinking and believes that if they pay top dollar and them some, they will have high retention (probably true) and may save money in the long run (iffy).
Note to fast-food managers: If you want high retention, pay at least a little above market rate (at least 10% mor
not $15/hr more like min wage + tips or sub min + (Score:2)
not $15/hr more like min wage + tips or sub min + tips + a low MR.
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To be replaced by self driving trucks. How short sighted are you.
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Thought you could make a living by driving?
Now you're fucked.
Kust yesterday in this forum the other bunch of pearl-clutchers was claiming that self-driving vehicles would never come into mass use. Now which fake disaster story are we going to coincide on?
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We've all heard the joke, and it ends with, "but she has a great personality!"
Lots of ignorant, not-so-good-looking, and generally not talented people can find work in the service industry. People don't like talking to computers on the phone, even if the person on the other end is just punching the equivalent of a touch tome pad for them. I've worked at such places and the buildings that house such people are HUGE. I've often wondered why some of the jobs they had there weren't more automated. Lots of s
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course. You wags always criticize automation by asking, if the corporations only employ robots and don't pay any human workers, who will have any money to buy their products? The corporations have an answer: automated robot consumers. Corporations will use robots to buy each others products and services, and the economy won't need humans anymore.
Re:Autonomous Ride-hailing Technology (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course. You wags always criticize automation by asking, if the corporations only employ robots and don't pay any human workers, who will have any money to buy their products? The corporations have an answer: automated robot consumers. Corporations will use robots to buy each others products and services, and the economy won't need humans anymore.
Once again, scifi comes to the rescue: "'The Midas Plague' (originally published in Galaxy in 1954). In a world of cheap energy, robots are overproducing the commodities enjoyed by mankind. The lower-class "poor" must spend their lives in frantic consumption, trying to keep up with the robots' extravagant production, while the upper-class "rich" can live lives of simplicity. Property crime is nonexistent, and the government Ration Board enforces the use of ration stamps to ensure that everyone consumes their quotas. The story deals with Morey Fry, who marries a woman from a higher-class family. Raised in a home with only five rooms she is unused to a life of forced consumption in their mansion of 26 rooms, nine automobiles, and five robots, causing arguments. Trained as an engineer, Morey modifies his robots to enjoy helping to consume his family's quota. He fears punishment when his idea is discovered, but the Ration Board—which has been looking for a way to abolish itself—quickly implements Morey's idea across the world."
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Of course sci-fi also doesn't need to take reality into account. Assuming the poor are incapable of sustaining themselves, they must be given wealth. Why would rich people give more to the poor than what is absolutely necessary to maintain a civil society where the masses don't riot and start a revolution? Consumption is only good if you don't have to supply the money they consume with, otherwise it's just an inversion of the broken glass parable. If you can break glass and generate business for yourself, g
Jonny Cab trademark is available (Score:1)
Now all we have to do is worry about copyright lawsuits.
That, and maybe asphyxiation.
"Everyone's doing it!" (Score:2)
"How hard could it be?" -_-
So now the truth is out (Score:1)
I guess the real reason for autonomous vehicles is to eliminate jobs. Also the mindset of both Uber and Lyft. It was never about anything else and when it comes right down to it. Eliminating the human factor saves the most money. But of course the proponents will always argue these are jobs nobody wants anyway or are hard to find people to work them. Did you ever think that the people that do might not be able to find any other work qualified for. This person could then become another burden to society on w
Open (Score:2)
They are claiming the tech will be open. I hope so. Open is the only way to do driverless tech. A bunch of different proprietary systems would suck. Especially when dealing with things like merging. Car to car and traffic device to car communication will be important. Although systems should be resilient of cars or devices that lie.
What about BART and the DC Metro? (Score:2)
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how come transit systems like San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit and the Washington DC Metro can't be the first things piloted by it?
there's no point, labor costs for mass transit are small, one driver per train with hundreds of passengers
taxis etc are one driver for one or two passengers, much more opportunity for cost savings
doors (Score:2)
Some train systems have dual doors and are more autonomous. Right now it's taking a long time to get PTC rolled out.
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Driverless trains are pretty common. The DLR in London had no drivers from when it opened thirty years ago.
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One word, liability. That is enough right there but interaction with people plays into it too.
For a car the cost of a driver is to hire one person for what? One passenger? Maybe four or ten? With a train you have hundreds of people to spread the cost of the driver and that person has the ability to do much more than any computer managing the train.
For example, a minor mechanical failure could render a train or car powerless to move. Maybe it's just a screw loose, maybe there is a flat tire, or whatever
Waiting for headline "Lyft plagued by car thefts" (Score:1)
What keeps an unattended car from getting stripped to the frame? You might have GPS on the car, so you know the locations, you might have cameras, but they rarely provide a clear enough picture to catch anyone. Even so, this is all to respond after the fact, the car can still be stripped before law enforcement arrives. In cases when people are not at risk the police put them at a low priority, as they should.
Not that many people care about getting caught, prisons are so overflowing in many parts of the n