{"id":17794,"date":"2024-09-02T21:51:43","date_gmt":"2024-09-03T01:51:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/?p=17794"},"modified":"2024-09-05T12:55:11","modified_gmt":"2024-09-05T16:55:11","slug":"waymo-takes-to-the-streets-in-more-cities-in-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/2024\/09\/02\/waymo-takes-to-the-streets-in-more-cities-in-progress\/","title":{"rendered":"Waymo takes to the streets in more cities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

” ‘There is nobody behind the driver\u2019s seat at all — in fact, often there\u2019s nobody in the car at all, and it\u2019s driving to pick somebody up,’ says Andrew Chatham, senior director of commercialization, scale, and infrastructure at Waymo. He spoke with ABC Audio in LA for a new exhibit at the famed Petersen Automotive Museum highlighting the story of Waymo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘So we use a variety of sensors on the car. There\u2019s cameras, there\u2019s radars and lidar — which is a laser range finding system. We take all that information, we look 360 degrees around us, multiple times a second, and we drive,’ says Chatham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A test vehicle used by Google in 2015 and 2016 to research autonomous vehicle technology is seen at…Show moreAlex Stone\/ABC News<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And Waymo claims driving in one of their cars with the computers doing the work \u2013 accelerating, braking, stopping, and changing lanes \u2013 is actually safer than driving with a human behind the wheel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very clear that it is ready for the streets — we\u2019ve seen from statistics that it is safer than human drivers, so if you\u2019re comfortable with those, you should be pretty comfortable with Waymo,\u201d says Chatham. ‘Even more comfortable.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But not everyone is comfortable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘We\u2019ve heard of these cars shutting down when they lose cell service, traffic being backed up, they don\u2019t know how to maneuver through more, you know, winding roads. Blocking emergency vehicles. And also there\u2019s an aspect of jobs being lost,’ says Los Angeles City Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Waymo app showing a self-driving taxi is set to collect a passenger in three minutes.Alex Stone\/ABC News<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But Councilmember Soto-Martinez has another issue: driverless taxis could mean a human is out of a job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘It\u2019s definitely taking jobs right now. I mean, there are autonomous vehicles driving folks around with the many issues,’ he says. ‘In my community, those jobs are often done by people who just arrived in this country. \u2026 If that\u2019s going to be outsourced to an autonomous vehicle that is gonna cause all these safety concerns, I have big issues with that.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jain says history would show technology always takes jobs, and that jobs change over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘Eventually there is some adjustment in the labor market. People find other kinds of jobs, and start to do more interesting jobs than I guess, driving cars around,’ says Jain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chatham says while nobody is driving the cars, plenty of people are working at Waymo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘Waymo\u2019s provided a lot of jobs. We\u2019ve do use several human beings to run the service, we have people operating the depots, we have people working in desk-based jobs. I\u2019m employed by Waymo,’ says Chatham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘And I think it\u2019s also easy to forget that people spend a lot of their time just sitting in traffic, beholden to the steering wheel that they\u2019re sitting behind. And they can free up that time, and make people productive. That is time back in people\u2019s lives,’ he adds.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A Jaguar I-Pace autonomous vehicle from Waymo is seen pulling over to collect a passenger, Aug. 1, 2…Show moreAlex Stone\/ABC News<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

-Stone, A., & Dobuski, M. (2024, September 2). Waymo takes to the streets in more cities<\/em>. ABC News. https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Technology\/waymo-takes-streets-cities\/story?id=113248606<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It’s incredible that this technology is already so developed! This technology is extremely impressive. It would be awesome to improve road safety by eliminating human error in driving. However, this becomes an issue when we consider those who currently work as rideshare drivers for Uber, Lyft, etc. Often, rideshare drivers are immigrants who recently moved to the United States, and English is not their first language. “…many immigrants are attracted to driving platforms as they have a low barrier to entry with quick hiring. Drivers don’t need strong English proficiency; they just need a driver’s license and a car to start” (Sheidlower, n.d.). Automating taxis would take jobs away from this group of people. While Waymo argues that jobs at Waymo would balance this, they fail to recognize that they would likely not hire these same immigrants to work at their company. It becomes a class issue when low-income immigrants have their jobs replaced by robotic taxis that will be serviced by those who have a United States education, documentation, English proficiency, and experience learning and working in tech. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s important to recognize that every advancement in design has unintended consequences, and often those consequences affect the least privileged groups in society. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

-Sheidlower, N. (n.d.). Gig work is the new Ellis Island for immigrants looking for work. but many drivers feel trapped in the long hours and low pay.<\/em> Business Insider. https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/uber-lyft-florida-miami-fort-lauderdale-immigration-rideshare-driving-cuba-2024-5#:~:text=Immigrants%20nationwide%20are%20relying%20heavily,longer%20hours%20for%20low%20pay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

” ‘There is nobody behind the driver\u2019s seat at all — in fact, often there\u2019s nobody in the car at all, and it\u2019s driving to pick somebody up,’ says Andrew Chatham, senior director of commercialization, scale, and infrastructure at Waymo. He spoke with ABC Audio in LA for a new exhibit at the famed Petersen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":125,"featured_media":18301,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17794","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/125"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17794"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18273,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17794\/revisions\/18273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}