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Waymo Starts Robotaxi Testing In Philadelphia and NYC (techcrunch.com) 40

Posted by BeauHD from the coming-to-a-city-near-you dept.
Waymo has launched new "road trips" to Philadelphia and New York City, "signaling the Alphabet-owned company's interest in expanding into Northeastern cities," reports TechCrunch. While these trips don't guarantee commercial launches, they follow a pattern that previously led to deployments in cities like Los Angeles. Other road trips this year are planned for Houston, Orlando, Las Vegas, San Diego, and San Antonio. From the report: Typically, the trips involve sending a small fleet of human-driven vehicles equipped with Waymo's autonomous driving system to map out the new city. Then Waymo tests the vehicles autonomously, though still with a human behind the wheel, before taking any data and learnings back to its engineers to improve the AI driver's performance. In some cases, these road trips have led to commercial launches. In 2023, the company made a road trip to Santa Monica, a city in Los Angeles County. The company now operates a commercial service in Los Angeles, including Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and Hollywood.

For its Philadelphia trip, Waymo plans to place vehicles in the most complex parts of the city, including downtown and freeways, according to a spokesperson. She noted folks will see Waymo vehicles driving "at all hours throughout various Philadelphia neighborhoods, from North Central to Eastwick, University City, and as far east as the Delaware River."

In NYC, Waymo will drive its cars manually in Manhattan just north of Central Park down to The Battery and parts of Downtown Brooklyn. The company will also map parts of Jersey City and Hoboken in New Jersey. Waymo applied last month for a permit to test its AVs in New York City with a human behind the wheel. The company has not yet received approval.

Waymo Starts Robotaxi Testing In Philadelphia and NYC More | Reply

Waymo Starts Robotaxi Testing In Philadelphia and NYC

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  • Letâ(TM)s not beat the shit out of these cars like we did the robot a few years ago
  • Very soon. That's on top of stuff like how Amazon uses 50% robots in its warehouses and that percentage continues to increase.

    We are going to have major social problems when that unemployment hits. There isn't going to be anything for those people to do. Especially the Uber drivers. Uber is pretty much the bottom of employment in america, sub minimum wage in many cases. If you're at that level then it's because there isn't anything else for you.

    People always say that there will always just be more j
    • Does it ever accelerate to the point we feel the wave crash or do we just continue to stay ahead of the crest to where it feels normal? Itâ(TM)s a confusing time
      • Yes. There are tipping points where everything completely goes to shit. It'll be around the time we hit about 10 to 15% permanent unemployment. That starts to trigger feedback loops where lower consumer demand causes businesses to lay people off increasing the unemployment which causes lower consumer demand which causes businesses to lay people off which... You get the idea.

        Over time the world's going to basically become a giant prison system. Drones will be used to keep us under control and the ruling

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dvice ( 6309704 )

          I don't think that the rich have such a plan. Rich just try to stay rich and do their moves accordingly.

          In theory there is a solution. Governments need to buy or build companies that fill basic needs for the citizens. When you have that, you can use mandatory rotating employment in those companies to keep stuff running without paying wages and the companies themselves will provide basic needs for everyone for free. If automation replaces workers, it will have no effect to the country, except people get more

    • Tax and redistribute, we can just say it. If unemployment is going up but so is GDP, money is being made somewhere.

      Tax it and use it to build and maintain a robust welfare state apparatus. If we want to tie to a work requirement because you know, America, then fine, bring back the WPA.

      • It's not going to happen at all. Democrats will literally throw an election before they will help hold money accountable.

        • Ignoring the fact that the affordable Care act is right there proving you are wrong all the left wing can do is shit on the centrists. You're all completely fucking useless. Hell worse than useless you do positive harm. A bunch of angry 12-year-olds who refuse to acknowledge reality.

          Nina Turner is quite possibly the worst politician in American history. She ran as a Democrat and a primary election and spent the entire election talking about how terrible the people she needed to vote for her were. Absol

          • Ignoring the fact that the affordable Care act is right there proving you are wrong

            You mean where profit for insurance companies is written into the act? Clown.

      • Tax and redistribute

        Sure. So everybody without income is basically kept as a pet of those who still do something and have income.

        • That's why it's the welfare state. Like I said, we can make a work program so everybody's panties don't get in a bunch. And yes wealthy people and hierarchy can still exist too, are we happy yet? I'm willing to eat a lot of our protestant conservative work ethic bullshit to get to humanitarian end point instead of the dystopian one.

        • But the vast majority of us will be stuffed on reservations like the Indians were but without the casinos. Intense bitter poverty.

          • But the vast majority of us will be stuffed on reservations like the Indians were but without the casinos. Intense bitter poverty.

            I would expect, instead of casinos, we'll eventually have fight to the death style "clubs" where the oligarchs can offer a bounty, people sign up in hopes of winning enough to buy their families a little security for a brief moment, and a bunch of us beat the shit out of each other until one is left standing. I mean, let's be honest, we're essentially on the Roman path right now. Just as well rebuild the concept of Gladiators.

      • You can use overwhelming propaganda to get any election to 47% and a bit of voter suppression to close that Gap. That's how Donald Trump won the election even though his policies are intensely unpopular. He is still polling at around 46% even though 71 million people are on Medicaid and about to lose access to healthcare and hundreds of rural and suburban hospitals are on track to close...

        You do eventually get to a point where the propaganda isn't enough but by then the ruling class have completely elim

        • Solving the right wing media operation and how they are able to fall into lockstep on messaging is really the question everyone is looking for an answer to and yeah I'm not gonna say I know but you are correct in that without solving that it's really rough.

          Until then I think Democrats are gonna have to engage on right wing media more, go into the bears nest and try to fuck them up. For that though you really need that messaging discipline, have some key big policies/goals, get everyone on board and just ha

        • 71 million people are on Medicaid and about to lose access to healthcare

          I don't see why people are saying this. People on reddit are saying, "I'm on medicaid, I'm' going to die."

          There are 71 million people on medicaid. It's getting a 12% cut, and that will harm some people. But how do you equate it to a 100% cut?

          Look at this graph [usgovernmentspending.com]. Reducing medicaid by 12% takes it down to $700B which only rolls it back to the level of 2021 or 2022.

          And this reduction is supposed to phase in over the next 10 year

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by flink ( 18449 )

            If a hospital goes from 100% funded to 88% funded it very well might 100% close. Also medicaid disproportionally funds care in small towns and rural communities, so the effect is not evenly distributed. People with limited mobility and ability to afford travel/relocation might see services they depend on to survive disappear.

    • People always say that there will always just be more jobs but what do you actually have the base that off of?

      History.

      We have had generation after generation of inventions that put vast swaths of people out of work. Nobody blacksmiths any more. Very few work on farms any more. Very few work in factories any more, at least in First World countries. Hardly any ports have longshoremen any more. There are no telephone operators, or telegraph operators. All those jobs are just...GONE!

      And yet, we are all employed. At least, everybody who really wants to work, is employed.

      The AI revolution is not different. It's just anot

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dvice ( 6309704 )

        Inventing new jobs is extremely easy. Just give a spoon everyone and ask them to dig a big hole on the ground. When it is done, ask them to fill it and repeat. Real problem is finding someone who will pay for work.

        So you should not think what new jobs we will have, you should think about what people want to buy and who is going to pay for it and how much. Humans have some basic needs, like food, but that is already heavily automated. We won't be needing much more food so there won't be new jobs in the food

    • It's funny that you cite Amazon as an example of a company putting people out of work by using robots. And yet, Amazon employs more than 1.5 *million* people. And their workforce is increasing by about 2.3% per year.

      They should keep doing more of whatever they're doing, if we want more jobs for people!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dvice ( 6309704 )

        It is funny to you only because you are not looking the big picture.

        "As Amazon has grown, the number of independent businesses has fallen. Between 2007 and 2017, the number of small retailers fell by 65,000.[8] About 40 percent of the nation’s small apparel, toy, and sporting goods makers disappeared, along with about one-third of small book publishers."
        https://ilsr.org/articles/fact... [ilsr.org]

        And that is just job loss inside the USA. Amazon also sells outside of the USA so similar job loss happens globally a

        • There is no clear connection between the success of Amazon, and the loss of small retailers.

          At the same time, 2 million small businesses sell their good through Amazon. https://www.forbes.com/sites/k... [forbes.com]

          Despite what your article says, Amazon has *not* cornered the online market. Your article says in the next breath, that Amazon controls about 50% of online purchases. That's a lot, but not a monopoly.

          How about let's see some actual significant job losses, before we start crying that the sky is falling.

    • Very soon. That's on top of stuff like how Amazon uses 50% robots in its warehouses and that percentage continues to increase. We are going to have major social problems when that unemployment hits. There isn't going to be anything for those people to do. Especially the Uber drivers. Uber is pretty much the bottom of employment in america, sub minimum wage in many cases. If you're at that level then it's because there isn't anything else for you. People always say that there will always just be more jobs but what do you actually have the base that off of? I can tell you that I know history and there was widespread technological unemployment following both industrial revolutions. We didn't actually solve that technological unemployment until after world war II. I guess we could do world war III only this time we've got nukes. We could transition from a competitive society to a cooperative one but absolutely nobody except a handful of socialists wants to do that. And I mean a handful. Even among socialists a lot of them don't want to do it Basically I'm just spitting out problems here without solutions. Happy to hear solutions but all I ever hear is people denying the problem exists. That works. For a little while anyway.

      With where we are in the west right now, especially the USA, we'll lock into denialism and stay there until it blows up in our faces. I'm pretty safe in betting that when the unemployment starts climbing, we'll change how unemployment is reported until it doesn't look so bad. We'll stop at nothing to say everything is fine so long as the uber rich can keep extracting wealth from the rest of society. Once we hit the point where it starts to impact their profits, I would expect us to declare outright war, but

    • People always say that there will always just be more jobs but what do you actually have the base that off of?

      All of human history. Your post and concerns have been repeated ad nauseum since the industrial revolution. Yet here we are, 100s of years later, it turns out there's always stuff for people to do. It may just not be the same thing we've always done.

    • Unemployment numbers are below 5%. That's a handleable level, if we weren't abrogating the safety nets.

      What you're talking about -- replacing Uber drivers .. will take at least a decade. Minimum, and that's on accelerated track assuming Tesla, GM, and Benz etc. gets in the game. Come back to this comment in 2035. Truck drivers ..that'll take 20 years. Within that time, any number of shit can happen that would create jobs and opportunities you haven't even thought of. For example, humans may still be needed

  • There are some narrow/one-way streets in a few parts of the grid, mainly in the older parts of town toward the Delaware side, and a couple of oddities with active trolley tracks, but mostly it's a rationally laid out place where they took care to make surface transportation as painless as possible.

    Suburbs are mostly a grid too.

    Philadelphia is Northeast cities on easy mode.

    Boston roads on the other hand...third world at best.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      There are some narrow/one-way streets in a few parts of the grid, mainly in the older parts of town toward the Delaware side, and a couple of oddities with active trolley tracks, but mostly it's a rationally laid out place where they took care to make surface transportation as painless as possible.

      Suburbs are mostly a grid too.

      Philadelphia is Northeast cities on easy mode.

      Boston roads on the other hand...third world at best.

      Boston on July 4: "You can't get there from here." When they shut down Storrow Dr., all those one-way streets become the tenth circle of hell.

  • Has anyone considered inventing robo-passengers? We can extend the broken window fallacy by starting a robo-passenger business to prop up the robo taxi business.

    The dream is to get to a world where there are no humans working, ideally no humans even living, save for one. [imdb.com]

    • "I invented the cordless extension cord" --Steven Wright

      • My family would tie a string around the TV remote to keep it from wandering off. But I often wondered why we didn't do the same for the cordless phone.

  • Their company name sound like the sound their cars make when they hit someone. It took DARPA to beckon driverless cars. DARPA for all its merits--is not known for its people skills.

  • Speaking as someone who drove for Yellow (ugh) in the mid-seventies, this is NOT RIDE SHARING, this is a taxi service. Therefore, Waymo needs to buy the $37k (last I heard) taxi medallion for each one. That is, until they hit the city's limit.

    Waiting to hear some moron go on about the world always needs ditch diggers and taxi drivers, as a way to work for a living.

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