Lyft Plans Fleet of Hundreds of Tensor Robocars From 2027

Lyft is teaming up with Tensor Auto to launch hundreds of AI-powered "Robocars" across Europe and North America starting in 2027. Bloomberg reports: Tensor Robocars, the first deliveries of which are planned in late 2026, have more than 100 sensors including cameras, lidars and radars, and processes sensor data with artificial intelligence technology powered by Nvidia Corp. chips on board. The vehicles will come from the manufacturer with Lyft's platform installed, which will allow owners to make money on the rideshare network in markets where level 4 autonomous technology is available, according to the joint statement. Lyft has reserved hundreds of Robocars via its affiliates for its own fleet operations, subject to regulatory approvals.

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[Tony Isaac]

For what it's worth, the old taxi system was ripe for disruption. The system was expensive and full of entitlement. Service was not good, especially in suburbs. If Uber and Lyft hadn't come along, somebody else would have.

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[fluffernutter]

Yes so it's so awesome that the new system is just starting out omitting all that inefficiency by letting people starve instead.

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[Tony Isaac]

I know right! People are starving in the streets of America. It's like a zombie apocalypse, undead people rambling about everywhere.

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[fluffernutter]

You think that won't happen?

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[Tony Isaac]

Oh, I thought you were saying it's already happening!

No I do not think this will happen. Every place in the world where true famine is taking place, it's due to war and corruption, not automation and new technology. Even the Great Depression didn't happen due to new technology, though the Roaring 20s were full of new inventions that displaced human labor. Rather, the Depression happened due to a giant investment bubble bursting. It's possible that the giant AI investment bubble could cause a recession, even

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[fluffernutter]

Except Trump is as corrupt or more corrupt as those same governments that started wars. So where does that leave us? He starts firing 750k people today because he thought there wasn't enough competition for jobs already.

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[Tony Isaac]

I agree with your assessment of Trump and that his dictatorship is causing grave harm.

But your original contention was that self-driving cars would be what leads to starvation. Let's keep our causes and effects straight, OK?

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[fluffernutter]

My point was, where are these taxi drivers going to go? It's a pile of fewer jobs over another pile of fewer jobs. Most Americans will starve or work for just enough to sustain themselves. That's the whole plan!

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[Tony Isaac]

OK so you're back to Trump *not* being the cause of this future starvation. I thought we had agreed on that point, but maybe not.

My point was that automation is not the cause of famine or even severe job loss anywhere. In all of history, even the industrial revolution itself, no major depression or severe unemployment has ever been credibly attributed to automation or technology. https://www.technologyreview.c... [technologyreview.com] As this MIT Technology Review article points out, AI and automation (like robotaxis) isn't diff

Re: From a decent pay to exploitation to unemploym

[fluffernutter]

No one has been able to make machines that replace people yet. Only machines that make people more productive. Your theory may not hold with machines that can replace basic human thinking entirely.

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[Tony Isaac]

You're wrong on two counts.

First, machines do replace people, in large numbers. Today's factories are filled with robots that replace people who used to work in those factories. 95% of farm jobs have been replaced by machines over the last 100 years.

Second, the idea that machines can think, is buying into the AI hype bubble. I actually use AI every day, and benefit from it greatly. It *makes me more productive.* But it's clear that there is not even a shred of human thinking, whatever that even means. As ot

Re: From a decent pay to exploitation to unemploy

[fluffernutter]

The industrial age was a time of tremendous growth. Yes an excavator did the job of 20 men, but that didn't put 19 men out of a job because the jobs were getting 20 times bigger. The whole economy was expanding and companies had to pay 20 men to run 20 excavators because it was profitable for them. But it is hard to see 20 secretaries "doing AI". They will be lucky if one of them is left.

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[Tony Isaac]

Were the last 100 years of farm mechanization years of "tremendous growth" for farming? Were the last 50 years of factory automation years of "tremendous growth" for factories? Hardly. The "tremendous growth" argument doesn't hold water.

And guess what, businesses already don't have secretaries. That was a thing 30 years ago, but no longer. Sure, there is one here or there, but it's a very uncommon occupation. I guess AI already eliminated that job, 30 years ago.

Re: From a decent pay to exploitation to unemploy

[fluffernutter]

Yes farming has seen tremendous growth. Better growing methods, larger fields, larger yields, larger corporations. No industrial manufacturing has been dying. That's why most of it is done in China and Trump's tariffs hasn't been enough to bring them back.

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[Tony Isaac]

Farming may be seeing tremendous improvement, but that has not kept the employment numbers up. 100 years ago, 12 million people worked on farms. Today, just 2.5 million. That's almost 10 million farm jobs lost.

In 1970, about 20 million Americans worked in factories, today just 13 million. That's another 7 million jobs lost.

So how is it that we're still at full employment? Your "tremendous growth" did not keep the job numbers stable.

The answer is, those people changed to other kinds of work, that never exist

Re: From a decent pay to exploitation to unemploy

[fluffernutter]

Ok but read my words: now machines can replace people.

Re: From a decent pay to exploitation to unemploy

[fluffernutter]

You are assuming because people are in jobs that they are in a job that is satisfactory to them. If you don't have a job in the US you don't even have healthcare, which is basically extorting people into working a horrible job.

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[Tony Isaac]

You're clearly not reading mine either. Machines have already been replacing people for decades (farming, factory work). How is this any different?

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[Tony Isaac]

I make no such assumption. People take different kinds of jobs with different kinds of benefits, or no benefits, for all kinds of reasons. My wife has a part time job with no benefits because she doesn't want to work full time, and she's covered under my insurance. That's her choice, and mine. It's not necessarily an evil system.

But this is a distraction. You are trying to assert that AI is going to be the end of employment. That is not the case. Will everything be fair and nice and rosy? No. It already isn

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[fluffernutter]

If that were true then there wouldn't have been a great depression.

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[fluffernutter]

So now you have contradicted yourself. "Will everything be fair and nice and rosy?". That's exactly what I am trying to say. That it will be less fair to the extent that people will not be able to find jobs at the wages they are accustomed to today. That wages will fall to be enough to sustain your family and that's about it.

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[Tony Isaac]

The Great Depression wasn't caused by automation. It was caused by a giant stock market bubble, bank panics, and excessive tariffs. https://www.britannica.com/sto... [britannica.com] Nice try.

Re: From a decent pay to exploitation to unemploy

[fluffernutter]

Taxi drivers are only 50k people, but Trump is set to fire 750k people from the government. I guess I just don't see those people becoming data scientists overnight.

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[Tony Isaac]

Again, not caused by automation. You keep reinforcing my point.

Re: From a decent pay to exploitation to unemploy

[fluffernutter]

How does DT expect the government to run the same if not through automation?

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[Tony Isaac]

He isn't trying to automate the government, he's trying to decimate it.

Re: From a decent pay to exploitation to unemploy

[fluffernutter]

Ok well there are companies looking to automate and we are still before any real AI.

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[Tony Isaac]

To them I say, good luck. Automation is difficult and very, very expensive. It doesn't matter if the automation is the result of AI. AI is also very, very expensive. The stuff you get from ChatGPT is just the loss leader for real enterprise AI applications, and those are very pricy. That price will keep AI from decimating the workforce.

Re: From a decent pay to exploitation to unemploy

[fluffernutter]

Well I guess I am one of the few who are using AI to speed up their work at least by 10x then. Everyone is focusing on what AI is doing to or for the inexperienced employee and how people who don't know how to program are being enabled. Those people are screwed. It is the people who know how to code and can understand and follow what AI is doing that are going to make people unnecessary b because they can do 10x more right now. I do agree with you that, yes, actually getting it to the point where an id

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[Tony Isaac]

Speed up work, yes. Automate work, that's a different story. AI requires careful babysitting in the hands of a competent user. It cannot be left unsupervised, without disastrous results.

And 10x is not realistic. If that's what you're experiencing, great, but I don't really believe that. It certainly isn't borne out in studies. https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-... [stlouisfed.org].

Re: From a decent pay to exploitation to unemploy

[fluffernutter]

I really don't know what other people are doing wrong. I have read a bit about some AI coding solutions and they seem horribly over complicated to me which would interfere with my creative process. My method is very simple, But it gives me the ability to come up with a 10,000 line script in an hour. I am proposing solutions that would have taken too long to be realistic pre-AI. Now I can deliver much more as a worker.

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[Tony Isaac]

If you are getting 10,000 lines in an hour, those 10,000 lines are going to be full of vulnerabilities and bugs, and you'll never know. There is no way to adequately describe in English in an hour, the job those 10,000 lines of code should do. If you did, then you pretty much got some random code that you have no idea what it actually does.

If you are vibe coding for your own pleasure, that's all great! But if you are building production code, those 10,000 lines of code are going to require a TON of review a

Re: From a decent pay to exploitation to unemploy

[fluffernutter]

No I can read those 10k lines and understand what they are doing way faster than I can write them. That's what I mean about it helping the experienced.

Re: From a decent pay to exploitation to unemploym

[fluffernutter]

Maybe those jobs were not meant to be jobs to support families on, I agree with that. But no one seems concerned that more and more people do need to turn to those jobs to support families.

Lol.

[Valgrus Thunderaxe]

That is all.

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[martin-boundary]

Ars was just repeating what Elon was telling you then. Why is he still around, anyway? Tesla shareholders are such boobs.

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[sinkskinkshrieks]

I give it 1-2 years before Advance Publications is owned by either Larry Ellison or Elon Musk or private equity because they're not happy with billions, they need to manufacture consent to get even more money and mindshare while gutting the last gasps of journalism too.

will they pay the owners the costs being an taxi w

[Joe_Dragon]

will they pay the owners the costs being an taxi while getting out of liability?

Fuck right off with unpiloted death machines

[sinkskinkshrieks]

The first time when (not if) it kills someone, the company must be liquidated.

This is just so fucking stupid and I do not consent to being put at risk by AI billionaire assholes' bullshit.