I hope this isn't a case of how many people does it take to drive an autonomous bus? Two, one to drive it, and the other to wander round telling passengers it's autonomous.

Yes, the point of autonomous buses is partly to get rid of the human driver, so they are obviously not going to create a new position to continue to have a human on-board.

This is temporary until people are used to, and confident about, a bus with no driver, and until law allows no emergency driver on-board.

Precedent being lift/elevator operators, I suppose?

They weren’t so much sacked as they were made obsolete by technology and rising productivity. You could still find bus conductors in China even just 10 years ago where they still made sense a bit (if only to collect fares).

Many busses still have them in China

Yes, I included the link for more useful context, but ultimately I think it comes down to the same thing.

We still have them here in India

Last time I was in Delhi (about 5 years ago) there were still elevator operators. Not only completely useless to me as a user, but also taking up space preventing people getting in when it’s busy.

People in India just need jobs. It’s not even functional in many cases though the presence of a person feels nice in a lot of these places.

You can pay someone to do something that’s not needed, and maybe it gives them a sense of purpose based on a Victorian/puritanical view of the world (rather than just giving the money regardless)

However to me it’s like doormen and bellboys at US hotels or people behind a counter at a shop, it’s unnecessary human contact (which is horrendous), and it reduces functionality (reducing capacity of fixed infrastructre)

A better solution would be to employ people in more productive enterprises.

Nice doublespeak

I don't remeber bus conductors being that friendly and helpful though, tbh.

I don't believe you, I've seen "On The Buses'

That's a slightly "luddite" interpretation. The bus conductor job-class was outmoded by technology. More jobs are created at a higher technology level. This is how society has progressed for all history.

A fantastic Mitchell and Webb comedy sketch on this topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyu4u3VZYaQ

Or in the US, picking up used needles, cleaning vomit, piss and fecal matter.