I believe we're still a decade or more from true driverless vehicles / cabs. There are so so so many situations which require specialized decision making to get out of that we really need general AI to truly have cars drive themselves. I'm sure we'll get some sort of hybrid model sooner where the cars are driverless 95% of the time, but someone at a remote center can take over and pilot it around construction / through a power outage / on icy roads / in emergency situations / while getting pulled over by police / when there is a rally in the streets / on detours with workers waving you on / in freeway shutdown-type situations etc etc.

Uber is betting the farm on being able to solve this in the next couple of years or however much financial runway they have left. Good luck, but I don't see how.

But why wouldn't the callcenter approach work? That's where I see many other industries going. Cut the workers, use a callcenter instead through telepresence. Even if it's only 95% selfdriving, that's massive savings compared to having a driver in there 100% of the time.

This could be great for freight trucking where they spend majority of time on freeways, which should be easy win for self-driving, and then do the last leg with a virtual, or physical pick-up driver. Likewise for shipping.

"Johnny Cab asks for a Bitcoin" -- Wouldn't make a bad nerd culture faux folk song. (Or a Filk)