Robot Wars

My sister called that one right.

I’m referring to a disagreement we had during our visit to San Francisco last week after we wrapped up our family reunion.

Right wing media has working overtime to depict the Fog City as some kind of dystopian hellhole, but we saw very little evidence of that during our outings.

It’s a big city with big city problems, okay? Give it a rest, dickwads.

But one spooky thing that stood out to us was the overwhelming presence of Waymo robotaxis zipping up and down the streets seemingly every other second.

Seriously, you’d get to an intersection and they’d buzz by--white driverless vehicles with LIDAR units mounted on the roof, often two or three at a time.

I’m fascinated by the science behind these robots, but I am a bit creeped out by the lack of humanity.

Still, I kept bugging my sister to take a ride in one of the things just to say we did it.

However, she steadfastly refused, pointing to safety concerns and the human toll as people are lose their livelihoods to the machines.

I am concerned about the job losses, too, but I confess that I allowed myself to be blinded by the science.

Level 3 self-driving cars like Waymo demonstrate fewer accidents than human drivers, with property damage claims reduced by up to 86% and injury claims declining roughly 90%.

Vehicular accidents take a terrible toll, and I’m interested in anything that can increase safety.

San Francisco was the scene of a horrific crash in 2024 that killed a family of four—mother, father and their 20-month- and 2-month-old sons--as they were on their way to the zoo.

However, self-driving vehicles are expected to cause significant, long-term employment shifts, potentially displacing 1.3 million to 4.5 million driving-related jobs.

We saw a couple roll up to Coit Tower in a Waymo and they told me that they were very pleased with their robotaxi experience.

There are some who call me...Tim?

Still, my sister would not budge, declaring that Waymo was a no-go.

I was bummed initially, but I’m so glad that we skipped the robot route because otherwise we never would have met Tim, an Uber driver who picked us up at the CalTrain station.

Tim was a massive fellow who came to this country from Fiji in the Eighties.

He told us that he had worked as a cross-country trucker for Mayflower Moving Co. back before GPS and cellphones, when you had to find your way with paper maps and payphones.

Like most people, Tim had a low opinion of New York City motorists and really hated driving to the Big Apple. I couldn’t argue with him on that one.

Driving for Uber was Tim’s side hustle, a backup to his night shift job taking care of elderly people.

He started the driving gig after he gave up drinking and had more time on his hands.

And we learned that Fijians in the San Francisco Bay Area and across California are seen as a vital part of the healthcare backbone, with a strong presence in non-medical home care, specialized Alzheimer's care, and community-based support services in the region.

What else?

Well, Tim was a professional rugby player for 10 years until his knees gave out, and now he’s doing tai chi. And like us, he hates Donald Trump with a four-alarm passion.

Tim had no love for the robotaxis that were encroaching on his territory. He told us of an incident in the city where a major power outage shut down traffic lights and knocked the Waymo vehicles for a loop.

“People were trapped in the cars,” Tim told us.

And now I can see the humans behind those job loss numbers. One of those 4.5 million driving-related jobs could be Tim.

I don’t know my way around San Francisco, but I suspect Tim might’ve gotten a little disoriented at one point during our trip across town. I’m not complaining, though, since I enjoyed his company so much.

When we pulled up the de Young Museum, Tim shook our hands and wished us well. I was so grateful that we had met this man and heard his story.

You can’t get that out of a robot.