this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2025
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I am entirely opposed to driving algorithms. Autopilot on planes works very well because it is used in open sky and does not have to make major decisions about moving in close proximity to other planes and obstacles. Its almost entirely mathematical, and even then in specific circumstances it is designed to disengage and put control back in the hands of a human.
Cars do not have this luxury and operate entirely in close proximity to other vehicles and obstacles. Very little of the act of driving a car is math. It's almost entirely decision making. It requires fast and instinctive response to subtle changes in environment, pattern recognition that human brains are better at than algorithms.
To me this technology perfectly encapsulates the difficulty in making algorithms that mimic human behavior. The last 10% of optimization to make par with humans requires an exponential amount more energy and research than the first 90% does. 90% of the performance of a human is entirely insufficient where life and death is concerned.
Investment costs should be going to public transport systems. They are more cost efficient, more accessible, more fuel/resource efficient, and far far far safer than cars could ever be even with all human drivers. This is a colossal waste of energy time and money for a product that will not be par with human performance for a long time. Those resources could be making our world more accessible for everyone, instead they're making it more accessible for no one and making the roads significantly more dangerous. Capitalism will be the end of us all if we let them. Sorry that train and bus infrastructure isnt "flashy enough" for you. You clearly havent seen the public transport systems in Beijing. The technology we have here is decades behind and so underfunded its infuriating.
This technology purely exists to make human drivers redundant and put the money in the hands of big tech and eventually the ruling class composed off of politicians risk averse capitalists and beurocracy. There is no other explanation for robo taxis to exist. There are better solution like trains and metros which can solve the movement of people from point A to point B easily. It does not come with a 3x-10x capital growth that making human drivers redundant will for the big tech companies.
There is another reason, though, and it's much simpler. Basic greed.
There are people who see the opportunity to make more money for themselves, so they'll do it. When it comes to robo taxis, they're not interested in class struggles, it's not about politics, their interest in making human drivers redundant extends only so far as increasing their customer base. These aren't Machiavellian schemers rubbing their hands together and cackling at their dark designs coming to fruition, it's just assholes in suits who's one and only concern is "number go up."
Even when it comes to their politics and to the class dynamics, their end goal is always the same. Number go up. They don't care about what harm it could do. They're not intent on deliberately doing more harm, they give no thought to doing less harm, they do not care. All that drives them, ever, is Number Go Up.
You got downvoted but you’re right. The only cabal at work here is basic human greed. Anytime you want to know why people do something, consider the motivation of the person and the incentives. Musk constantly talks about how autonomy will make his company worth “trillions”, and he wants that because he’ll keep maxing the high score in Billionaire Bastard Bacchanalia.
He can claim noble intentions, but as you said, the game is simply to make Number Go Up. That it causes untold harm to others isn’t even an afterthought.