China's Drivers Fret as Robotaxis Pick Up Pace and Passengers (reuters.com) 58
China's rapid deployment of robotaxis is raising concerns among the country's 7 million ride-hailing drivers, who fear job losses as autonomous vehicles hit the streets, according to a Reuters report. At least 19 Chinese cities are conducting robotaxi trials, with seven approving tests without human monitors. Baidu's Apollo Go plans to deploy 1,000 vehicles in Wuhan by year-end and operate in 100 cities by 2030. The push for self-driving technology aligns with President Xi Jinping's call for "new productive forces," but contrasts sharply with the more cautious approach in the United States. As robotaxi fleets proliferate, some drivers worry about their livelihoods, with one Wuhan driver predicting "everyone will go hungry."
"As robotaxi fleets proliferate" (Score:2)
No need to worry ... the first time mobile phone connections are disrupted and these things gridlock the city, they'll be able to drive shiny new taxis.
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> Is hailing a cab just anywhere still a thing?
Old movie cliches notwithstanding, it was only just barely a thing before the ride sharing apps got started. The utter craptitude of the taxi companies is exactly why and how how Uber, Lyft, and the also-rans got their starts in the first place. It was the old: "You have an itch, so scratch it." ethos that's often bandied about wrt/ founding startups. If fact, Uber's first name was UberCab; a name chosen to reflect that the company was just so much better
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The utter craptitude of the taxi companies is exactly why and how how Uber, Lyft, and the also-rans got their starts in the first place.
Regulations. Specifically those of various taxi/limousine commissions. NYC led the way by rejecting taxi dispatch using the web. Or anything else that po' folks didn't have at the time. So Uber jumped in and said, "We're not a taxi service. We're a ride-sharing application."
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Citation needed.
My experience suggests it was inertia more than anything that slowed down taxis from adopting alternate means of "hailing" rides. (and that's not dispatch - taxi dispatch is still often by by radio/phone, rather than internet)
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Hailing a cab always has been a thing in crowded parts of cities, including through the times Uber and Lyft got started. I was occasionally hailing taxis downtown for 40 years, and it was only during the pandemic shutdown that it became uncertain whether you could find a cab in a timely fashion. (but might as well drive then, since downtown roads
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I disagree, the cost of regulatory compliance that was built into the fares of existing taxi companies meant they could not compete on price of companies that have no regulatory compliance.
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Manually driven cars don't need remote control handlers to nudge them in the right direction when the fragile system of fail safes makes progress impossible.
Re:"As robotaxi fleets proliferate" (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: "As robotaxi fleets proliferate" (Score:2)
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Re:It's genuinely hilarious (Score:4, Insightful)
It's always the same deal.
"Totally this way works and is better, everyone is just doing it wrong".
You'll never change their beliefs, a comedian made a fantastic joke about it but it was very accurate as well regarding being in favor for communism.
"Comrade, if you had two cars, would you give me one?" Of course I would!
"Comrade, if you had two houses, would you give me one?" Of course I i would!
"Comrade, if you had two chickens, would you give me one?" No. "Why not?" Because I have two chickens.
Those who have do not want communism, as they stand to lose, those who do not have want communism, because they stand to gain.
Nothing more, nothing less. Just regular greed.
TL;DR
Everyone who would gain from this supports it, everyone who would lose from it doesn't. Even those who support it now, if they become successful and would lose from it, change their mind, and that says it all.
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Communism: such an ineffeciant system that China has used it to become the world's 2nd largest economy. so ineffeciant that the USSR used it to become the first humans in outer space.
Although calling China and the USSR communist is about as true as calling the US a democracy. I'm sure Marx was like "Under my system China will have 814 billionaires by 2024 and the capitalist Americans will only have 800. Hell yeah".
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Even those who support it now, if they become successful and would lose from it, change their mind, and that says it all.
Most would, some wouldn't, that's still not a criticism of the idea. The real criticism is that it involves too much intellectual effort, and you will always have some people who are just lazy in that department.
On the other hand, you can say exactly the same thing about capitalism. Without an educated and informed population electing an effective and well-intentioned government, bad actors are most rewarded and bribe their way into control, and the whole system becomes unsustainably corrupt.
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Yeah capitalism certainly has it's problems and bad actors that make it not work as intended.
However we have seen better societies using capitalism, and horrific ones consistently from communism. It's more about the level of control available to the bad actors under the two systems. Under capitalism, they can bend rules to manipulate situations, communism they just outright break them, and they take any tools you might be able to use to fight back away.
The problem usually when it comes to communism is ideal
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Even those who support it now, if they become successful and would lose from it, change their mind, and that says it all.
Most would, some wouldn't, that's still not a criticism of the idea. The real criticism is that it involves too much intellectual effort, and you will always have some people who are just lazy in that department.
Criticism of the idea is abundant, and with examples. That's another thing that is common with these discussions "You're just not smart or qualified enough to understand how much better this is". Bullshit.
My comment shows that the people pushing this idea do so without merit. Ergo, the idea has no merit, ergo it is criticism of the idea.
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That's another thing that is common with these discussions "You're just not smart or qualified enough to understand how much better this is". Bullshit.
I didn't say that. If you believe that I did, you're not smart or qualified enough to have an argument in English.
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The real criticism is that it involves too much intellectual effort,
That's exactly what you said. You think you're being clever with your wording but uh, you're not, no one falls for it these days, when people choose not to respond to you it's not that they aren't aware of the BS.
You're mixing up the means of production (Score:2, Insightful)
Communism doesn't say you can't own a car. It says you can't own a car factory
It's not about those who have, it's about those who get to decide who has and who goes without. Elon Musk gets to decide who lives and who dies. He decides who gets to have a home & food and who starves to death in the streets.
And yeah, only about half a million are in danger of dying of the elements in America, out of 350m that's small enough that most of us don't fear for our lives. But it
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Interesting, it's Elon Musk who decides that, not your government? Is your current president so inept that he leaves it to corporations to decide who lives and who dies? Brutal, I pray for you and a swift change of leadership to someone who actually represents your population.
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Social democracy is a better model. Look at the Nordics. They have capitalism, but it is just a tool that they use to create wealth for everyone. The government, the employees, and the employers were all forced to work together for historic reasons I won't get into, and it turned out to be a great model.
Most workers are in a union, and the unions for unions of unions. The employers also form unions, and they both have the government to moderate. The employer unions are well placed to advise on economic issu
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Their taxes are also 20 to 30% higher. Everyone in this argument always brings out Sweden etc. 60% tax rate, double your current tax rate.
Also, drug addicts on the street get arrested and forced into rehab. If you're going to start quoting these countries, like everyone does, every single time, you need to adopt the rest of what you may not like that comes with it to make it work.
You need to be prepared to take, say, you get 3000$ take home at the end of the day, now it's 2000$, and the prices of everything
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Because communism is an unrealistic ideal and centrally-led socialism is an exploitable form of government ripe for the corrupt to take over.
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Communism does actually have a real meaning and people can and do lie about being something they're not.
Free markets are impossible. Go look up YouTuber Adam Something's series on anarcho-capitaliam.
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>>It's difficult to maintain communism because without an enormous amount of education, training for critical thinking and media literacy it's easy for a charismatic bastard to come along and trick people into all sorts of nasty things.
Sounds suspiciously like capitalism
Self-driving doesn't work (Score:2)
Self-driving doesn't work.
This is just stupid hope update to keep the money flowing.
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Self-driving doesn't work.
This is just stupid hope update to keep the money flowing.
The owners have decided that it *WILL* work. Though I have a hard time believing what happens in China is more to the owners of the United States than just an interesting what-if scenario at the moment. I expect, with the draconian rights-stomping we're getting from our government officials, across the political spectrum, it's only a matter of time before they'll just say that human drivers are too dangerous, and for safety we just have to stop allowing human drivers altogether. Because everybody should be
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only a matter of time before they'll just say that human drivers are too dangerous, and for safety we just have to stop allowing human drivers altogether
Not far-fetched. One of my coworkers openly and earnestly wants the government to ban human drivers for safety reasons, once self-driving cars become reliable enough.
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only a matter of time before they'll just say that human drivers are too dangerous, and for safety we just have to stop allowing human drivers altogether
Not far-fetched. One of my coworkers openly and earnestly wants the government to ban human drivers for safety reasons, once self-driving cars become reliable enough.
I've been hearing this from several circles online, and a few real-life people that, as far as I can tell, don't like driving themselves. Living in the midwest, where muscle cars and motorcycles are still pretty big deals, I can't see people just rolling over for it. Yet. Younger folks don't much like driving, and some of them really, REALLY want self-driving to become the norm. Very few of them are too gung-ho on banning human drivers though.
priced out (Score:2)
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I think that we will have self-driving cars. It is a solvable technological issue.
We will likely have human driven cars for another generation or so.
People who grew up when we did viewed cars as freedom. Once you were old enough to drive, you could go farther from home, and were allowed to stay out later. Once you were 18, you could take YOUR car, and go wherever... stay away for days or weeks, or even move out of your parents house for good. The current youth don't have the same view as we did. They d
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I think that you are overly optimistic.
I didn't. I viewed cars as a necessary "evil" (operating costs, capital costs, maintenance, etc.)
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Kids will discover the same freedom in a self-driving taxi, and they will discover it at a much younger age than 18. Operating the machinery yourself is irrelevent and will have no effect on their emotional attachment to the vehicle.
Face it, the classic human-driven and privately-owned car is doomed. It will take a few decades. For-hire robo taxis will be how everybody will travel, it will wipe out personal cars (whether or not they are self-driving) and will wipe out public transportation (except forms tha
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However, China gives no fucks. They don't care if people get run over on the way to becoming a "first world" (looking) nation. All they care about is that
Re: Self-driving doesn't work (Score:2)
> However, China gives no fucks
Don't be rediculous.
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Most of us have been in Teslas where it clearly worked fine.
Except for the fact you regularly need to intervene to avoid an accident. You can't do that in a robotaxi.
I know a few idiots who get smashed every weekend then let the car drive their drunk asses home and they do a lot better (DUI-wise) than the ones who drive themselves.
Not necessarily a fan of snitches, but maybe you want to drop the dime on them before they kill someone?
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Most of us have been in Teslas where it clearly worked fine. I know a few idiots who get smashed every weekend then let the car drive their drunk asses home and they do a lot better (DUI-wise) than the ones who drive themselves. If you mean they cannot operate for long in a place with courts where the operators can be sued, well yeah, that might be true.
However, China gives no fucks. They don't care if people get run over on the way to becoming a "first world" (looking) nation. All they care about is that when foreign journos come visit Shanghai they are impressed by the tech and the "foward thinking" government.
That's ADAS (drive assistance), not self-driving.
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Self-driving doesn't work.
This is just stupid hope update to keep the money flowing.
And you'd explain all the self-driving cars currently on the roads... how exactly? Or are you arguing it doesn't "work" until and unless every single edge case is handled perfectly? Like, navigating in a parking garage, etc. It's true companies are starting with the lowest-hanging fruit, which is driving on well-mapped public roads in decent weather, but that's how all tech starts out.
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Self-driving doesn't work.
This is just stupid hope update to keep the money flowing.
And you'd explain all the self-driving cars currently on the roads... how exactly? Or are you arguing it doesn't "work" until and unless every single edge case is handled perfectly? Like, navigating in a parking garage, etc. It's true companies are starting with the lowest-hanging fruit, which is driving on well-mapped public roads in decent weather, but that's how all tech starts out.
Those "self-driving" are ADAS. There is always someone monitoring, either in-vehicle or through a remote connection.
Re: Self-driving doesn't work (Score:3)
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Except self-driving does work, not yet for all circumstances, but they learn very fast and in a decade they will drive much safer as even the better drivers (most human drivers are just crap).
They were saying that 10 years ago and will be saying that 10 years from now.
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Self-driving doesn't work.
This is just stupid hope update to keep the money flowing.
Well, it mostly does, in appropriately controlled (and mapped) environments, as a number of urban areas are, and where a lot of the taxis are. Where it still fails spectacularly is when something completely out of the ordinary happens (like the lady in the middle of the street in a wheelchair using a broom to herd her duck back to the sidewalk).
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Self-driving doesn't work.
This is just stupid hope update to keep the money flowing.
Well, it mostly does, in appropriately controlled (and mapped) environments, as a number of urban areas are, and where a lot of the taxis are. Where it still fails spectacularly is when something completely out of the ordinary happens (like the lady in the middle of the street in a wheelchair using a broom to herd her duck back to the sidewalk).
No. It fails spectacularly at least a few times an hour. More if there are more vehicles on the road and less if there is nobody on the road.
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Self-driving doesn't work.
This is just stupid hope update to keep the money flowing.
Doesn't work now (outside of some narrow circumstances) but experience and funding are the best way to fix that.
China dominates the solar industry because the state supported the industry in its early stages until it took off.
They're looking to do a similar thing with self-driving, right now Chinese companies are getting tons of experience with self-driving cars, and the revenue stream to further development. There will probably be a few fatalities, but the outcome should be a decent self-driving car indust
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Self-driving doesn't work.
This is just stupid hope update to keep the money flowing.
Doesn't work now (outside of some narrow circumstances) but experience and funding are the best way to fix that.
China dominates the solar industry because the state supported the industry in its early stages until it took off.
They're looking to do a similar thing with self-driving, right now Chinese companies are getting tons of experience with self-driving cars, and the revenue stream to further development. There will probably be a few fatalities, but the outcome should be a decent self-driving car industry.
Long term they might not be able to deploy in the west, but they'll capture some developing markets and they'll certainly dominate in China.
Nope. All the "funding" will do is just create throwaway systems after throwaway systems.
Bring it on!! (Score:4, Insightful)
For one thing, a lot of other human drivers have lost their fucking minds--and the data is unambiguous about this recent trend. Fatalities went up as miles traveled went down and cars got safer. Anecdotally, I see crazy shit daily that I would see maybe a couple times a year 20+ years ago.
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Imagine all the hefty US truck drivers (Score:2)
under mass layoffs due to bot-trucks. If you think Jan. 6 was rough...