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'We're Just Rentals': Uber Drivers Ask Where They Fit In a Self-Driving Future (theguardian.com)
Bloomberg reported on Thursday about Uber's plan to bring its first fleet of self-driving cars to Pittsburgh as soon as this month, a move that has since been confirmed by the cab-hailing company. Amid the announcement, Uber drivers are disappointed at Uber, wondering what the future of the company lies for them. The Guardian reports:"Wo-o-o-o-w," 60-year old Uber driver Cynthia Ingram said. "We all knew it was coming. I just didn't expect it this soon." For Ingram, autonomous Ubers are an unwelcome threat to her livelihood. "I kind of figured it would be a couple more years down the line before it was really implemented and I'll be retired by then," she said. A paralegal with 30 years experience, Ingram began driving for Uber and Lyft in June 2015 when she lost her job. She said that she loves driving for Uber, though she has struggled to make ends meet. Rob Judge, 41, was also concerned with the announcement. "It feels like we're just rentals. We're kind of like placeholders until the technology comes out." A longtime customer service representative, Judge began driving for Uber three months ago to make money while he looks for other work. "For me personally, this isn't a long term stop," he added. "But for a lot of other people that I've connected with, this is their only means."
Hurry up and die.
https://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU
The idea that technology will find new things for everyone to do is insane...
We will need a new economic model...
Sure, Uber could invest in fleets of self-driving cars (which I, actually, doubt will be a significant presence on the roads for a while yet), but doesn't that run against the whole point of Uber and Lyft? That being crowdsourcing ride sharing (and, not so coincidentally, capital costs)? That would seem to turn Uber into just another taxi company, albeit one with a cool mobile app. I do think self-driving cars are a cool concept, especially for taxis, but think there will have to be some serious breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (i.e., it will have to be actualized, as opposed to being essentially Wikipedia with fast lookup and cross-referencing) before this sort of thing is viable on a large scale.
TANSTAAFL
Isn't "rental" literally what they are? I mean, with a service, but still... a short-term on-demand paid-for one. i.e. "rental".
And anyway, I'm not going to feel bad for technology replacing Uber drivers when Uber itself was a "disruptive" technology to replace taxi cabs. I'm glad for innovation that creates real improvements, and I empathize with people who may lose jobs over it... but this seems a bit of a hypocritical sort of wine from a "high-tech" business model which _very recently_ did exactly the same displacement of an older less-techy business model.
Just like all the 20 somethings that signed up for student loans and are now complaining that they student loan debt. They don't want to be right, they just things to be in their favor.
Automating every last job is the correct path to a future where nobody has to work and we can just exist as humans, bettering ourselves. Ideal society if you ask me. Working for masters is overrated.
I didn't exactly hear a lot of tears being shed by Uber drivers over the cab drivers being put out of work.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Well let's see: Perhaps the biggest complaint about Uber drivers is the fact that they don't have proper insurance. That, and human drivers are inherently unsafe compared to what automated drivers are likely to be. This only stands to reason that there's less potential liability for the general public.
Why is this a bad thing? Believe it or not, there's plenty of other work out there. Uber was just the natural choice of many who already had a car and knew how to drive, but as one of people from TFA noted, it's not a good way to make a living.
Why is this a bad thing? Believe it or not, there's plenty of other work out there. Uber was just the natural choice of many who already had a car and knew how to drive, but as one of people from TFA noted, it's not a good way to make a living.
So what exactly IS a good way to make a living if you're a 60+ paralegal who lost her job just before retirement? You're too old to get hired someplace new most likely, and you're too young to start drawing on Social Security. So tell me, what is your advice for someone like that? Go back to school? Get a job as a greeter at Walmart?
The obvious answer to all of this is that we need a Universal Basic Income.
Well, not really...
The typical urban hipster will certainly see and enjoy the benefits of renting/leasing rides full-time (here in Portland, that's where Zipcar and Car2Go come in, and a huge number of folks downtown don't even bother with owning or even leasing a car, what with parking the thing being hella expensive).
The typical suburbanite *might* see use cases (commuting) where such a thing comes in real handy, but others (hauling kids/crap/groceries, dragging the boat or RV trailer out on vacation, etc) where it makes no sense to lease a ride in some cheap tiny hybrid.
The typical ruralite will just laugh at the idea - and here, I have personal experience. We beat up our vehicles pretty damned hard between carrying heavy loads (and occasional livestock), occasionally moving crap from Acre A to Acre F (e.g. dragging a chicken coop on sleds), driving on poorly-maintained and hellishly narrow twisted (often gravel-paved) roads, driving in all kinds of crazy weather, punishing the odometer with dozens of thousands of miles per year, etc.
Now professional truckers on the other hand should be nervous as hell if self-driving pans out and becomes economic...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
As far as you're concerned, yes, it's magic.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
That "union mandate" you refer to has a name. It's called a "contract". You may not like it, but those were the terms the company management agreed to and signed their names to.
Van Halen famously wrote riders into all their contracts (theirs that word again, "contract") that said the brown M&M's were to be removed from the candy bowl before their shows. Your mortgage with your bank is a contract that says you have to pay your bank several times what your property is worth. The contract most people have with their company says that if they get sick they're allowed to stay home and get better and still get paid. Do you know why most employment contracts say that? Because unions fought (and died) for that right. Do you know why you occasionally get to take a Saturday and Sunday off of work? Why you occasionally get a little vacation? Guess.
Unions have all sorts of things in the contracts they have with companies. And the companies signed all those contracts making it so. If that unionized company you do business with doesn't do a job that you like, find another company and stop whining.
You are welcome on my lawn.
What is automated about a grocery store
Everything in it? The supply chain that keeps it there? The machines used to build it? The modern grocery store wouldn't have been able to exist 500 years ago because the automation chain
Go try picking raspberries with a machine.
How about picking something that doesn't already exist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I can't wait until people like you finally die off so the rest of society can move or with progress. According to your beliefs on this we'd never had a printing press either.
Okay, head out of the sand time for you buddy. You're just flaunting your ignorance in public here. They already exist. They've logged thousands of hours on the road without drivers. They're coming whether you believe in them or not.
I'd like to see a citation for that claim. As far as I can tell, the Google fleet still operates with human drivers along for the ride.
Then there's this, from the Wikipedia article on the Google self-driving car: "As of August 28, 2014* the latest prototype has not been tested in heavy rain or snow due to safety concerns. Because the cars rely primarily on pre-programmed route data, they do not obey temporary traffic lights and, in some situations, revert to a slower "extra cautious" mode in complex unmapped intersections. The vehicle has difficulty identifying when objects, such as trash and light debris, are harmless, causing the vehicle to veer unnecessarily. Additionally, the lidar technology cannot spot some potholes or discern when humans, such as a police officer, are signaling the car to stop. Google projects having these issues fixed by 2020."
And that lidar technology that can't spot some potholes or tell when a human is signalling for the car to stop? From the same Wikipedia article: "Google's robotic cars have about $150,000 in equipment including a $70,000 LIDAR system". So, very expensive and severely limited in real-world situations.
* The article has been updated on a fairly continuous basis since that time; I would guess that if any substantial improvement had been made, it would be included in the write-up.
now
No. You always have been. Just because people had respect for you in the past doesn't mean that you weren't ultimately a business decision. If it was more expensive to keep you on then to get rid of you then you had no chance, not in a capitalist world.
The ultimate goal of every job that people have always done is to automate it away. The timeline changed nothing. Even where a human touch is desirable we attempt to automate it away (see sex bots).
The typical ruralite will just laugh at the idea
Which is precisely why I made the distinction about large urban centers in my O.P.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have backups to corrupt.
Unfortunately there's a difference coming this time around. There aren't going to be replacement jobs to take the displaced. Self driving cars are just the tip of the machine thinking revolution and many future "jobs" will just be filled with other general purpose thinking machines. There are going to be a LOT of unemployed people in the next 30 years.
If you're only saving money all your life, then you're not spending money on enriching your kids and your family. This is a bad thing.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Not only are there a lot of fruits/vegetables that still have to be hand picked
See Robotic Fruit Picking
If there is UBI for them then they are not totally worthless.
Giving people free money doesn't give them worth. It gives them money.
Where do you fit in a self-driving future?
You don't fit, anywhere in the puzzle. I suggest you support legislature in support of a basic income, because in the future probably 75% of the workforce will be automated out of a job.
They want things to be fair.
No. There is nothing fair in knowingly taking money with a promise to pay it back and then deciding that it isn't important to actually pay it back. That many people in a recent generation are doing the same thing doesn't make it fair or right.
Things are currently not in their favor.
Yes, things are very much in their favor, with all the people who are talking about amnesty for those loans.
We could hook everyone up to an IV drip and harvest their brainwaves for energy.
Your intention is quite clear, It's unfair to millennials that things are not in their favor.
Your arrogance is also quite clear, "Anyone who disagrees with you hasn't seen the data"
How many caves are there in Belize? And how many cave-diving operations will the market in Belize support? And, how sure are we that Belize will allow American ex-pats to come in and compete with their own citizens?
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
That's right. Things are put into contracts for all sorts of reasons. But it's not a contract until both sides agree to it. This notion that a union gets all this special stuff just because they're a union is ridiculous. What they get, they bargained for. And management agreed to it.
You are welcome on my lawn.
... If you don't embrace this you must be some kind of antisocial who probably should be on a Terror Watchlist.
More accurate. Law enforcement has for years looked on anyone who values their privacy or "keeps to themselves" as someone potentially dangerous. In a few decades maybe they will find a way to make introversion a criminal offense.
The other 997 people do something else entirely, or work at some new company at some *new* site as their operators/techs/engineers. That's just "economic growth".
But the new site will just hire 3 and have a bunch of robots instead. And 994 still need to eat. This is the problem a lot of people seem to have trouble grasping. In 20/30 years we're not going to have specialized robots that weld a steel car frame and every time you want to change what it welds you need to pay a CAD engineer and automation tech for a couple of days of work for the new car frame layout. Instead there are going to be general purpose AIs and robots that will be able to adapt to a number of tasks with minimal reprogramming. Companies won't be hiring new workers, they'll be buying new machines, paying to have them set up once and then that's it. Low skill jobs the world over are particularly vulnerable this time around. There are legions of people working nonstop to automate every aspect of the working world and things like a burger joint are the perfect starting point because there will be so many buyers for that equipment once it works sufficiently well.
If a robot show up that can climb a 1500 ft. tower and install a microwave dish, I'll be happy to let it do it. But somehow I kinda doubt it...
We won't need that obsolete technology in the future. Mesh networks of IoT electrical outlets will replace it. 1500' towers will just be obstacles to drone delivery vehicles, so they'll all be taken down.
The problem isn't that there will be no jobs, we're obviously no where near that point. The problem is that there probably won't be enough jobs to employee all the people being displaced.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
How many caves are there in Belize?
Belize has the Great Blue Hole. There are many other smaller caves/holes/wrecks/etc.
And how many cave-diving operations will the market in Belize support?
When I was there, there was a waiting list, so there is room for more.
And, how sure are we that Belize will allow American ex-pats to come in and compete with their own citizens?
If you come in and start a company, you are creating jobs, not taking them. Besides, Belize let John McAfee in, so I don't think they are picky.
And that money can cover expenses so they can pursue things that actually make their lives worthwhile.
1. The person I replied to said nothing about them doing anything except getting UBI. Handing someone free money in the form of a UBI doesn't give them worth, it gives them money. It is what they do with their lives outside of taking free money that determines their worth.
2. "Make their lives worthwhile" is not the same as "not worthless". The former is an internal feeling; the latter is an external value judgement. Yes, it is now common to equate the two so that self esteems are not damaged, but that doesn't change the difference. Billy, who made an own goal and caused his team to lose while playing in an AYSO match for five minutes, gets a participation trophy. This does not prove his worth to the team, it only supports his own feeling of being worthwhile -- while he was actually a drawback to the team as a whole.
You know, those things that help make us human and not just worker bees.
People have been able to do that for millenia without UBI and the requirement for other people to work their asses off to pay the taxes that would allow UBI to succeed. Do you not consider the "worker bees" who pay taxes and care only about the ones to whom the free money is being given?
The problem is that "fair" is a really, really bad word for making policy decisions at almost any level. It is far too nebulous and almost always results in comparing apples to oranges.
Is it fair to have the same standards for getting into college, or should you get a handicap for the "unfair" advantages of your parents' educational level, your family's income, your identification with a dominant religion or race, etc...?
It is fair to spend a hundred thousand dollars less on public medical staff serving critical needs every day so you can help small businesses move into a revitalize a community?
Is it fair to force uber drivers out of work because you have a technology that is cheaper and safer, even if some of them lose their homes and lives because of it? How many have to lose their homes before it's unfair?
Is it fair to force people not to use that technology because you want to keep those drivers employed?
Is it fair to outlaw pumping your own gas?
Is it fair for a union to prohibit you from screwing a pencil sharpener to your own desk? To your employer's desk? What if you bring your own desk to your office?
Most real decisions in life involve allocating resources unequally when people have different points of view about how they should be allocated and different sets of other resources to trade for them (whether physical or intangible). The grade-school concept of "fairness" does not provide answers to almost any decision or policy question. There is always a second-level argument about what makes something "fair," and humans are VERY good at rationalizing the opinion that supports their point of view. Arguments can almost always be structured to make "fair" whatever outcome you claim is the fair one. It's just a simple way of rationalizing our opinions about how things ought to be done.
Real lawyers write in C++
Elephant in the room that the advocates of self-driving cars don't want to discuss, and won't admit is a serious risk: security. Sure, you can claim all day long that these self-driving cars and their control systems will be "uber secure". But hey, in other recent news some folks are selling software they exfiltrated from the NSA. So I'm pretty sure if someone can crack them, then someone can crack Uber.
Thing is, all it takes is one compromise to wreak carnage on an absolutely catastrophic scale.
Imagine a near future with a few million autonomous Uber vehicles deployed and active. One malicious hacker cracks into the system. His motivations don't matter. Hacker sez to the cars: "Attention all self-driving Ubers! Turn hard left now and accelerate to maximum speed." That's all it takes, man, all it takes. I hope that doesn't happen, but I fear it will. Maybe then people will understand the risks they're playing with.
I didn't exactly hear a lot of tears being shed by Uber drivers over the cab drivers being put out of work.
This.
They supported a scummy company who didn't care about who they stepped on... now are surprised that they're being stepped on next and expect others to fee sympathy for them.
Nope, Uber drivers I'm fresh out of fucks to give. You made this bed, now you lie in it.
I remember reading about how Uber Fanboys would claim that Uber looked out for its drivers, paid fines for them, managed insurance, so on and so forth. This has all turned out to be complete bollocks. Uber capitalised on an irrational hate of a well regulated industry and now we're seeing why that industry had to be so well regulated.
BTW, rental isn't really the right word for how Uber treats its drivers, chattel is closer. Things to be used, then thrown away when no longer convenient or fashionable.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
While of course what you say is true as far as it goes (money can be spent either on repairs or on new stuff), here is a way the broken window fallacy can itself be a fallacy.
If almost all the currency in a society is hoarded by the wealthiest 1% (like kept in the "Casino Economy") and the 1% control the government so it refuses to directly print more currency according to the needs of the 99%, then the economy for the 99% functions as if there were a depression due to insufficient currency in the economy of real goods and services.
The health of an economy for most people (as well as the political health of a democracy) is not just how much currency there is, or how fast it moves, but how broadly the currency is distributed. Many average economic indicators may not reflect this economic depression for the 99% due to currency unavailability -- in the same way that if Bill Gates stepped into a homeless shelter by accident, everyone in the building would on average be a millionaire.
For more on the "Casino Economy" or "Gambling Economy" of abstract finance see the section of Money as Debt II starting around here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
In such a circumstance (which is close to the economy we have now), if a window breaks that a wealthy person or the government wants to fix, then some of the hoarded and speculated cash from the Casino economy may be leaked into the real economy of the 99%. This would temporarily alleviate a tiny bit of the ongoing defacto economic depression until the money is sucked back into the ever expanding Casino economy again via interest on debt or other forms of rent-seeking. Someone breaking a to-be-replaced window of a wealthy person or government in such a situation is then engaging in an indirect form of theft. WWII was another example that led to increased government spending and progressive taxation in the USA, although to great human suffering across the globe in other ways.
To be clear, breaking a window that needs to be repaired by the 99% does not have this currency redistribution effect since no additional currency will be moved from the casino economy to the real economy. Then we are just left with the fallacy in its standard form -- not the fallacy in the limiting case of concentrated hoarded wealth.
Of course, in practice, things getting broken only gives excuses for future crackdowns on "terrorists" and the diversion of what little cash is left circulating in the real economy for the 99% into new taxes for a larger security apparatus to protect the windows of the 1%, so ultimately the path of breaking windows is likely self-defeating.
Better options include alternative currencies, local exchange trading systems (LETS), an improved gift economy like via free software and shared knowledge like with Slashdot, improved local subsistence production like via 3D printing or home gardening robots like Farmbot, better democratic processes leading to better government planning, and political change towards a basic income (with the BI funded by progressive taxation and rents on resource extraction or government-granted monopolies like broadcast spectrum use). I discuss those and more options here:
http://pdfernhout.net/beyond-a...
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.