Waymo or Waymore? 

First the Waymo taxi on my left sped up ahead and then put on its signal to merge in front of me into my lane. I began to slow down to let it into my lane, but then it turned off its signal and kept going straight. I thought oh, it must’ve changed its route, and so we kept going along until 30 seconds later, the Waymo put on its blinker again to merge into my lane. Once again, I slowed down and then the Waymo shut off its blinker and kept going. It repeated this process five times of signaling and not switching lanes, which began to irritate me and, when it did actually get over, it sped up significantly and darted into the lane with a rush. 

While I know there might be some kinks to work out with autonomous vehicles using AI, inconsistent driving still seems to be a huge opportunity for improvement. If another driver signals to merge into my lane, I’m expecting them to merge over or eventually do so. Repeatedly changing intention causes other drivers to be extra cautious, which then means having to monitor the other vehicle with hyperfocus since they don’t seem to know what they are doing or going. 

I noticed none of the Waymo taxis had any passengers in their seats so my question is how viable of a service is Waymo and other AI taxis for San Mateo County and other primarily suburban residential areas? We already have regular taxi cabs, Uber and Lyft, and now Waymo taxis all using the roads and making getting across town more slower and convoluted. Also, what are the taxis doing when there are no fares, do they just drive around or do they park and wait which also might take a parking spot? Are our streets just the testing ground for these AI taxis and are there limitations in cities or counties on how many of a fleet can operate in a town at any given moment? 

This reflects on how the future is with AI integration. We seem to be part of the experiment of AI integration and one that’s rapidly changing into the norm. Many of our jobs and normalities in life will become integrated with some aspect of AI, and while the promise of a seamless utopia is what we’re being sold on, it looks to be more like the reality will be much ongoing continued development and this will be the norm.

While our children may not know of a world without these technologies, most of us Gen X and above are keenly aware of a different world before 2007 and the smartphone dominated our attention and lives. Let’s just make sure we can still relate that world and create balance as part of the vision for this new world of machines.

Andre DeVito is the co-host and producer of Podcast By The Bay, hosts think tank discussion meetups, and consults with data and quality improvement projects in the health care field. He can be reached at highwaysoul@yahoo.com.