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

Within the 2016 press release that introduced Waymo as “Google’s self-driving automobile undertaking,” CEO John Krafcik wrote that “self-driving expertise may very well be helpful in methods the world has but to think about, creating many new sorts of merchandise, jobs, and providers.”

9 years later, Waymo autos 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 automobile door for $22 can be a authentic work gig, however it’s now.

A Washington Post story on Thursday seems at tow truck operators who use an app referred to as Honk to receives a commission to carry out providers for Waymo. One tow firm proprietor, Evangelica Cuevas, describes a reasonably 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 searching for a charger.

A College of Southern California knowledge scientist named Georgios Petropoulos advised the Submit, “People are wanted to work together with automated programs to be sure that service is offered in an environment friendly and secure manner.”

And because the Submit’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 may possibly 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.