alt Hacker NewsThe thing I unexpectedly like most about using Waymo is not having a stranger inserted into your conversation.
Every time I've taken a taxi in a group, the conversation ends when we get in and the driver is suddenly a part of our conversation. It's weird to have them sit there listening to your discussion but not participating, and it would be weird for them to participate. Inevitably the conversation turns to the mundane, questions about whether it's a busy day, how often do you drive in this part of town, etc.
I got a Waymo with friends and the conversation never missed a beat as we got into the car, rode for 15 minutes, and got out.
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They’re surely not recording your conversation. Today’s convenience is the soil of tomorrow’s turmoil.
Waymo has been ahead of the competition for a long time. It’s why Elon musk donates to GOP. He can’t win and jump through regulatory hurdles. He is and always has been so far behind the curve he is going even anything even if it’s criminal. (Which it is). Not shocking the first thing DOGE did was go after self driving regulatory bodies investigating his marketing terms and deadly crashes.
Yes the "lack of a human" is a feature. That said I've learned many things from talking to Uber drivers in various parts of the world (and in the US from Uber drivers from various parts of the world) so YMMV.
Yeah, now some future LLM from Google is a partner in your conversation, lol. "This call may be monitored or recorded for quality assurance and training purposes, and for future llm training"
My last couple of human driven rideshares, I didn’t have to worry about that because the driver was engrossed in his own phone conversation the whole ride. Not sure what’s worse.