Who says AI won’t create new jobs to replace those lost to robots?
It turns out that even though Waymo cars can read red lights, pick up and drop off passengers as requested and follow complex traffic laws, they cannot close doors left open by passengers.
In December the Washington Post reported that Waymo was paying people to close doors left open by careless customers, to the tune of as much as $24-$26 per door (not sure what happens if more than one door is left open- details!), and contacting possible helpers through an app aptly called Honk, which WAPO calls “an Uber for towing companies”. One tow-truck operator in LA was closing doors on a regular basis, as often as three times a week, as well as towing cars in for a power boost when their charge was exhausted.
But it was a power outage in San Francisco that caused real mayhem for Waymo vehicles and the poor schlumps trying to drive through the thicket of abandoned cars on the city’s narrow streets. Disabled streetlights caused the autonomous cars to stop and wait, as would normally be their response to a four-way stop. Unhappily, since no other cars moved, the Waymos stood still, jamming up drivers behind them. The power outage caused a flood of requests for human assistance; it was a mess.
Weirdly, given the extraordinary technological capabilities of the self-driving cars, they cannot always be easily found by the humans called in to help get them back on the road. Though the vehicles have GPS systems, one Waymo helper reported that her team sometimes spent as much as an hour looking for a disabled car. How is that possible?
CNBC reports recently that Waymo is hiring DoorDash delivery folks to close doors, offering in Atlanta, for instance, $11.25 a pop. Given that Waymo, currently operating in 6 markets, is rapidly expanding, this could become a booming business.
My question: will people start gaming the system by randomly opening the doors of empty Waymo cars, just to earn a quick buck by then closing them? Will Waymo next launch Robocops to prevent fraud? Anything is possible.
