It was what he used to survive though, and surely not all cab drivers would be the same.
My brother in law drove Uber when he was illegally canned from his factory work and is the reason he got to eat.
There are options to solve problems that don't require a change in the outcome you desire. Mainly something along the lines of forcing the companies profiting from this to pay a person a reasonable wage to act as the social aspect that will be missing. So the job market can be unaffected.
It's not just a cab job problem either. It's also not about who I like or dislike or whether or not it impacts me or not. I have never used a cab in my life and I cannot drive and thus have no car taking up your street.
I do however see a worsening homeless crisis in my small-ish Canadian city. I would rather see empty cars than tortured souls.
Force them to hire someone to sit in a car all day and do absolutely nothing?
To act as a local for a traveler.
To recommend locations
To do nothing but sit there and look at their device or read
Or perhaps the answer is a tax on automation and everyone can sit at home perpetually online.
Im not claiming to have answers to this rapidly approaching problem. It's definitely a problem though. Even if it doesn't impact myself whatsoever at this time.
What is your job? If it is gone tomorrow and your education is useless, what will you do?
What about your family and friends?
Nobody I know wants this. I’ve had great Uber, Lyft and taxi drivers. But they’re far from the norm. I’d much prefer to be able to play my own music, or take back-to-back phone calls, or snore loudly.
If this is genuinely the service, there is booming business in tour guiding.
I drove cabs for nine years (right up until Covid).
Some people want to talk, some people don’t want to talk, some people just won’t stop talking and you have to tune them out.
What everyone had in common was the desire to get from point A to point B as cheaply as possible. They didn’t care about any social aspect, given the choice I suspect the majority of them would rather not have been paying for my livelihood if it meant the ride was cheaper.
How many people do you think fell for the Lyft “fist bump” BS over taking a VC subsidized ride for a discount over a taxi?
Essentially removing most economic incentive to deploy self-driving cars at all?
Is money to goal or is it a better society? Less pollution, less waste, more social interaction, and increased safety. Less colored paper.
Surely the government has an interest in financially incentivising this development. Especially given a decrease in road wear and tear, lower climate impact and surely any number of other benefits.
More people taking cheaper trips in cleaner vehicles is a better society in my book.
What about when it's Waymo One or Uber Zero. Support is GPT7 Two.
No call center jobs, no driving jobs, less supporting jobs, less money flow, more homelessness, more violence. Decreasing compensation for the jobs remaining due to increased competition.
Short term profits go brrr?
Have you tried to get support on Uber, Lyft or a taxi?
> No call center jobs, no driving jobs, less supporting jobs, less money flow, more homelessness, more violence. Decreasing compensation for the jobs remaining due to increased competition
It's difficult to distinguish this from neo-Luddism. Maybe there is nothing productive for those people to do. If so, we can address it then. But the history of technological revolutions–from the agrarian to the internet–suggests the opposite. (We are, after all, discussing jobs which first arose around a century ago.)
"Let's make artificial fake work to make sure that people have something to do and money."
Hopefully we can do better than that.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-...
Many of the jobs you are referring to are socially fulfilling to some people. It's an escape from a poor home situation or from an addiction.
I can’t help thinking that the potential upside will far out-way the cost.
London streets are littered with dormant vehicles. Most just sit there taking up room and dominating the city. It would be a whole other city if we could change that dynamic.