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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

Middle steps: (1) Board members use product to travel to board meetings. (2) Board members use product as replacement for personal vehicles. (3) Board members demand pay increases.

Back in 1999 the Chinese government announced that airline execs would be airborne at the changeover as reassurance that aircraft were safe from Y2K. Like or hate them, the incentive logic was sound.

https://www.wired.com/1999/01/y2k-in-china-caught-in-midair/

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/chinese-airlines-won-t-be-bi...

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I think of that as a parachute-rigger solution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parachute_rigger).

Historically, people packing parachutes could be randomly selected to jump with the parachute they had packed.

It remains true in the military. Refusal to jump on a chute you have packed will cause you to lose your rigger qualifications.

> Middle steps: (1) Board members use product to travel to board meetings. (2) Board members use product as replacement for personal vehicles. (3) Board members demand pay increases.

How do you know board members aren't already using Waymo product heavily? It still doesn't mean they can go straight from board members using Waymo without backup drivers to arbitrary customers using Waymo without backup drivers.

Possibly to drive between their various houses?

> Possibly to drive between their various houses?

I'm guessing this is the old joke about Eric Schmidt?

"I save money by using nest thermostats in my various houses"

Because if they did then they would surely tout that fact at every oppertunity. Musk doesnt drive a ferarri to work. He drives a tesla to promote his company's product line.

Elon takes a private jet to work.

In Phoenix, people are being driven without a safety driver. They are doing these in between steps.

Maybe open up waymo rides to people with alphabet shares ? Then the owners and customers are the same group. Unfortunately multiple spouses aren’t really allowed in America, or you could limit ridership to spouses.

The acid test will be (4) Board members use product on their children.

Followed by (5) board members claiming legal bills for child custody disputes after caught leaving kids unsupervised in the custody of a 3000lb robot.

Arguably all modern vehicles are incredibly heavy robots. AVs are just supposed to be better robots.

No more so than a bicycle is a 20lb robot or an airplane is a 20,000lb robot. Clearly a self-driving vehicle is a different paradigm.

"The average car has 30 to 50 different computers, and high-end cars have as many as 100, and they're accompanied by 60 to 100 different electronic sensors." [1]

The median modern bicycle has 0 computers and sensors.

[1] https://www.ceinetwork.com/cei-blog/auto-computers-means-com...

Skin in the game. Nassim Taleb would agree with this measure!

Always makes me happy to see some good philosophy poking its head up. Great choice too, since the AV problem is fundamentally about Black Swans.

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