One of my favorite quotes, courtesy of William Gibson, is:
The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed
That's how it is with self-driving vehicles. They have arrived. But not everyone knows it.
I was thinking about that at dinner last night while talking to a longtime friend who had just bought an EV and was telling me how much he loves it. And I said, "But it can't drive itself." And he looked at me like I was joking.
I wasn't.
This year, 2025, has been a self-driving journey for the Gotham Gal and me. During our winter stay in Los Angeles, we started taking Waymos over Ubers. We became so comfortable in a car without a driver that we massively preferred it.
When we got back to NYC, we missed Waymos. Eventually, we got a new Tesla Model Y with the latest self-driving hardware and software in it, and now it drives us around NYC. One of us has to sit in the driver's seat, unfortunately, but otherwise it is a very similar experience.
My colleague Nikhil posted this on his return from SF to NYC last week:
every time I come off a week of taking waymos in SF:
1. it feels increasingly strange to return to a non-autonomous city (just as it felt weird to be in cities that didn't have uber yet in 2014-2016)
2. I come away feeling like we continue to under-discuss the second order effects of self-driving inevitability + ubiquity
I think the indifference in the air is largely a function of how gradual (relatively) the rollout of AVs has been and will continue to be
NYC is a tough place to drive in. There are pedestrians and bikes and scooters coming at you from every direction. When you make turns, you have to look everywhere to make sure you aren't going to hit someone. I can't look behind me. But my car can. And so I have found that our self-driving car is able to navigate the crowded and chaotic streets of NYC so much better than we can and almost certainly better than any human can.
Yes.
That's the reality of where are in 2025. Not everyone realizes it. But that is where we are.
And, as Nikhil points out, the downstream effects of this technology and behavior change are going to be profound.
AVC
12 comments
Hi Casters. I posted some thoughts on the inevitability of self-driving vehicles in NYC, and everywhere, this morning. https://avc.xyz/the-arrival-of-self-driving
Social third order effects interest me here e.g. companies differentiating/customizjng them for dates or watching sports - perhaps clustering into fleets autonomously (Sports fleet all going to the game in x state and stopping at the same rest stops) convoy style)
The idea that humans were ever good drivers is the greatest fallacy. Cars became ego and status, therefore we can justify everything about them. In 250 years, the 100 year era of cars will be seen as insane. People will say… “You spent 20%+ of your time driving? Down two lane roads directly at each other? Human frogger with a hint of playing chicken? While trying to stay in the lanes? You had to put flammable liquid in your car? Try to follow maps on a screen?” I think the biggest thing most don’t believe is that the desire to drive actually just fades away faster than we think. Cars felt like status. Driving felt like pride. It’s actually just a pain in the ass and is exhausting once you feel real self driving. I bet desire for wanting to drive just fades faster than we think. Just like digital checkmarks became more important to youth than owning a house, access to the best cars the fastest will be way more important than owning them.
A question on my mind has been this... what if roads in the self driving future are actually the greatest public transportation infrastructure? What if roads are just the subway and train tracks in a world that is self driving? If so, might be the best thing we could offer everyone - access to self driving, roads are the train tracks we've been paving for it.
The removal of human friction, if done well, is usually where the big innovations live.
I think one thing about nyc is that ubers would take 2x the time if drivers weren’t a tad over-aggressive pedestrians are so much more assertive and self driving cars can’t take aggressive liberties like that
Quality of life in NYC would vastly improve with the implementation of self driving cars. 51 pedestrian fatalities year to date due to automobiles. The number of near misses I see on a daily basis in Manhattan is staggering
Autonomous cars will become the norm, and they’ll be safer than human drivers. I’m just not convinced we’ll reach Minority Report–level vehicles climbing up the sides of buildings to drop you off at your high-rise, at least not in my Gen X lifetime.
🖤⭐️🖤⭐️😍 @crashtest
Did you see this essay? Good stuff. https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/please-let-the-robots-have-this-one
No. I hadn't seen it. But I agree with it
I'm on the Waymo wait-list for Orlando (coming in weeks). Can't wait to try it.