This says to me that "self driving is never really gonna happen":
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/waymo-kills-off-autonomous-trucking-program/
Long haul trucks are the best target: the biggest $ saved through automation, not just drivers but because you can also then platoon and save a fortune on gas, you operate on the interstate which is far more regular, and you can have local humans handle the last miles.
Giving up on long haul trucks (automation saves $30/hr) in favor of the enshittified market for taxis is giving up without saying so.
@ncweaver As the article mentions though, Google has a track record of just killing off any service that isn't quite working right this instant (which is quite a lot of them). I can entirely believe that it was just Waymo's turn for the hammer to fall, without that necessarily indicating that the tech is impossible to get right.
(I mean, I think actual fully autonomous get-in-and-tell-the-thing-to-take-me-to-the-other-side-of-the-continent driverless vehicles are some way off yet. But I do think we'll get there.)
