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Lyft Launches a New Self-driving Division and Will Develop Its Own Autonomous Ride-hailing Technology (techcrunch.com)
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.
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.
Now all we have to do is worry about copyright lawsuits.
That, and maybe asphyxiation.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
To be replaced by self driving trucks. How short sighted are you.
"How hard could it be?" -_-
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
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% more if you can afford to) and treat your employees like gold (except the occasional bad ones - let them go quietly before they bring down your entire work-force to their level). You probably don't have to pay 20+% more than market rate unless all the other restaurant managers are also treating their employees like gold as well.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
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.
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 welfare? Be very wary of people who claim they know best, because many times the benefit their after is their own not yours.
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.
Once thing I've wondered: if autonomous technology is getting so close to fruition, 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? If an automobile can operate autonomously in a chaotic and messy environment like the streets of a city, a light rail environment ought to be trivial by comparison. Fixed path, limited access, pretty static environment. I'd think you could get the humans out of light rail long before cars are road-worthy. I haven't heard anyone suggesting it, though.
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."
Some train systems have dual doors and are more autonomous. Right now it's taking a long time to get PTC rolled out.
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 just hope that some poor bastard is desperate enough to take the job in exchange for some half-assed shift meal and a few dollars, but not desperate enough to steal from the walk-in. He can write off theft.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
not $15/hr more like min wage + tips or sub min + tips + a low MR.
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?
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, great. If you also have to pay the repair bill you're going to end up with less than you put in. Purely destructive activity doesn't benefit society, if you really believe that go out and create jobs through vandalism. While somebody will get paid to fix things, as a whole the community will be poorer.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
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 stuff was done on paper, and there were people where their job was to move paper from one end of the building to the other.
The reason is that it's cheaper to hire a handful of paper pushers than to hire someone to develop and maintain an automated system, and still have a paper pusher to handle the odd cases that fall outside of the automated system. We might have robots that can flip burgers, but none of them can serve them with a smile. If you have "a face fit for radio" then a happy voice on the phone can make for a lot of happy customers.
As more things get automated the price of labor goes down for the less talented. These people will have to learn some talents or learn to be nice. There will always be those that can't do either, and they tend to become criminals or politicians, but I repeat myself.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
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.