Driverless Cars Expanding From San Francisco Streets To Nearby Cities
Autonomous vehicle technology has become synonymous with San Francisco. And their presence on city streets has been controversial to say the least. But now people in other cities are going to be blessed (or cursed depending on who you ask) by the future. Waymo has announced they are expanding their autonomous vehicle operation from San Francisco to the streets and freeways of neighboring Daly City, Broadmoor and Colma.
This announcement coincides with Alphabet’s $5 billion dollar investment in Waymo.
In addition to neighboring cities, Waymo vehicles will also be expanding its SFO operations. Because if Silicon Valley can’t figure out new and innovative ways to fuck over cab and Uber drivers, what’s the point of having money? To help people? Fuck you.
However, in many occasions, San Francisco residents have said “fuck you” back.
Back in February, a large crowd in San Francisco’s Chinatown set a Waymo vehicle on fire. And there have been numerous reports of people putting traffic cones on top of the vehicles’ cameras, rendering them motionless.
Critics see it as vandalism, but that may be overly dismissive of a legitimate and nuanced fear of the impact artificial intelligence will have on the lives and economic security of normal people.
5 million Americans work as professional drivers, and as far back as 2017, when the prospect of autonomous vehicles began hitting the mainstream media, it was estimated that self-driving cars would eliminate millions of jobs as companies would invest in the new technology as a way to reduce headcount and increase profit margins.
People instinctively understand this. And no city is more familiar with how technology can change the way a city functions more than San Francisco.
As Waymo and companies like it expand their territories and become more prevalent, the backlash to them will as well. There’s only one way to combat this. Companies like Alphabet (the parent company of Google and Waymo) need to invest in jobs programs aimed at training everyday workers and preparing them with the skills they need in order to find their footing in a changing economy.
Or the government needs to step in and cut these companies off at the legs before they completely decimate the livelihoods of millions of people not only in America, but all over the world.
If not, it won’t be long until we reach a societal boiling point. And by then, it will be too late.
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