Okay, I’ve seen a lot of things in my life, but this has me fairly floored. I was at an EcoAmerica board meeting dinner and afterward instead of calling an Uber like I usually would, I tried a self-driving car, a Waymo. (The name inspired by my friend, Jaime Waydo.) As I got home I was so excited to tell my Mom what just happened.
I feel like every cell in my body is charged, it’s like the first time I got a script to run, or committed code into b2/cafelog, this is definitely a before and after moment. Here’s a video as the car arrived and I got out. I’m really at a loss for words. The “wow” you hear me say in one of my most genuine in my life. The thing is I know these self-driving cars exist, I’ve seen them around San Francisco forever, but the experience of being picked up and dropped off by a robot navigating the tricky SF hills and streets just hits different.
“The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.”
William Gibson
One thing that always brings me back to San Francisco is you feel like you’re living in the future. Tonight was no exception.
Interesting… who would have thought Matt uses uber and the likes.
Sorry to miss the board meeting in person (will Zoom in). The video made this real to me — even from afar!
Did you tip the driver?
Ha!
> As I got home I was so excited to tell my Mom what just happened.
I love this <3
I can’t find the video link…
Where can I click to watch it?
It should be embedded in the post above.
Did you feel nervous? I feel like it would be hard for me to relax and trust the technology.
It was like a nervous giddiness. The way it drives is actually pretty “confident.”
So sorry. I had the “Scriptsafe” plugin turned on and it was blocking “videopress.com”.
The video is impressive. Thank you.
You live at the heart of things that are going to be our future.
Have you had a chance to ride in the GM Cruise autonomous taxies?
I watched segment on CNBC about robo-cars, it mentioned that Cruise is no-longer in California, but the reporter compared her experience in the ride quality between Cruise and Waymo. She described the difference pretty much like night and day, with Waymo’s maneuverability being the better of the two.
I was using them both in the very beginning, but I too didn’t feel as safe in a Cruise.