They have to last until their vehicles are autonomous. If drivers were phased in to paid training maintaining the fleets and troubleshooting kinks in the system, shitty jobs will become good jobs. Most drivers will leave, but a solid chunk of them could be brought in through an apprenticeship program that certifies them in mechanics, robotics, software, remote assistance, ground crews, electricity. Robotaxis are a whole new industry that's just gonna pop up nationwide they'll be maintenance intensive in so many ways. There's good lifelong careers there, because after Robotaxis arrive they aren't going away, and the potential market is so huge that no single competitor will be able to scale fast enough to dominate the way Uber has in the rideshare wars- it will be too capital/labour/politics/logistics intensive for that.

I recommend checking out this demo video that showed up on Kyle Vogt's twitter feed yesterday. The news barely touched it, it's a dashcam timelapse of a 20 minute autonomous drive through hectic downtown San Fransisco traffic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Tp6Ubf6mE4

Nobody really knew where the GM/Cruise/Lyft arrangement was at until this demo dropped, and it turns out they are advanced. Kyle Vogt is some kind of fucking dude. This industry is going to go kaboom. There's Apple, Zoox, Ford, the Germans, they've all committed massive resources, it's hard to know exactly where the state of the art really is, but they all read the same research papers papers, they all have talent onboard, they all have deep pockets, they're all moving with a sense of urgency.

If Trump keeps the full stack operation within our borders, it'll be a vital new industry. If that 1 trillion dollar infrastructure budget goes through, we'll be rejiggering our cities and everyone will have a good job that hopefully doesn't require a $50,000 degree. If Trump can make friends with the world and scale back the military industrial complex we might be able to pay for it.

The critical element of a successful social transformation that you're missing (esp. due to your reliance on players like Trump and Uber) is trust. You cannot hope for an equitable and progressive outcome unless the participants are trustworthy. Otherwise, you're setting your society up for disappointment, exploitation, and failure. You don't have to agree with me--it will prove itself.

I know this probably paints me as ancient but that video was so scary to me. I cannot escape the helpless scared feeling of an app driving me into a busy intersection. Maybe I've had too many apps and programs fail and crash.

You mean to say you're afraid of being driven around by somebody's minimum viable product? What could possibly go wrong? ;-)

For self-driving cars, viable includes safe. That's why it's taking a long time to develop.

I know that is Uber's view, I think it's mistaken and unsustainable. The lack of a sustainable policy is what creates the existential risk.

Sustainability and big-bang VC startups seem to be mutually exclusive.