Waymo Has to Pay Folks $22 to Shut Caught Robotaxi Doorways

Within the 2016 press release that introduced Waymo as “Google’s self-driving automotive venture,” CEO John Krafcik wrote that “self-driving know-how might be helpful in methods the world has but to think about, creating many new sorts of merchandise, jobs, and companies.”

9 years later, Waymo automobiles are on the roads, and whereas they clearly don’t create jobs for drivers, that press launch was proper about one factor: I by no means imagined that closing a automotive door for $22 can be a reputable work gig, however it’s now.

A Washington Post story on Thursday appears at tow truck operators who use an app referred to as Honk to receives a commission to carry out companies for Waymo. One tow firm proprietor, Evangelica Cuevas, describes a fairly bleak state of affairs for herself and her drivers, being provided “$22 to $24” to shut Waymo doorways, and “$60 to $80” to tow them, maybe as a result of one ran out of juice whereas in search of a charger.

A College of Southern California knowledge scientist named Georgios Petropoulos informed the Publish, “People are wanted to work together with automated programs to make it possible for service is offered in an environment friendly and secure method.”

And because the Publish’s Lisa Bonos places it: “The door-closing and towing gigs being picked up by Marenco and others in Los Angeles are examples of how as automation advances, it could actually create new work for people pressed into service to patch over its shortcomings.”

Total, it’s a disquieting imaginative and prescient of the way forward for work.