San Franciscans are having sex in robotaxis | Hacker News Reader

San Franciscans are having sex in robotaxis

sfstandard.com

64 pointsjitl86 comments

What's the point of robotaxis if you can't screw in them? Are you just supposed to stare at your phone with all that extra time?

They'll probably eventually get shittified like everything else and refuse to move if you're not staring at ads in the cabin.

> refuse to move if you're not staring at ads in the cabin

omg, don't give them ideas! Oh wait, someone just patented this and is seeking VC funding.

Over in Japan, some of the taxis now play ads (obnoxious audio included!) for the passengers to watch.

Yes, you still pay the full fare.

Yes, it is fucking obnoxious.

No, there is no power off or mute button; none that I could find, anyway.

Not sure if it’s common elsewhere, but many gas stations around my area have screen on the pump that play obnoxiously loud ads while you’re pumping gas. Most of them have a mute button at least.

If it is the eight button variety the 2nd from the top button on the right side will mute it. Even though it is unlabeled.

At the station by my house somebody used a label maker to label the mute button on all the pumps. I assume an employee who was tired of hearing the ads or hearing customers complain about the ads.

Euro-person her: the ones by me have a videocamera pointing at us...they just get the finger during my transaction.

I would feel no hesitation to tape or sticker over any of those.

Every camera I see gets the finger. Especially when I'm at Kroger / Fry's / Ralphs / Dillons and there's no manned cashier and I need to use the self-checkout.

UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA.

Some of them play the ads somewhat constantly. Really freaked me out the first couple times I walked to my local grocery store with a gas station at 5 AM, then suddenly heard someone loudly talking behind me.

In Thailand currently and most of the pumps play a nice little 8 bit dance jingle. I'd take that over ads!

I remembered the little dancer in Tetris.

> Not sure if it’s common elsewhere, but many gas stations around my area have screen on the pump that play obnoxiously loud ads while you’re pumping gas. Most of them have a mute button at least.

One of the many, MANY jarring things about going to the US. I jam my gas-gap filler cap in the handle and go check the oil so I can get as far away from that nonsense as possible.

All the gas pump handles I've used have a thingy that you can flip down to hold the trigger in place so you can let go and they will keep pumping. I've only pumped gas in Washington, California, and at a station that was on a Native American reservation in Oregon. Are there states where gas pumps don't have support hands free pumping?

> Are there states where gas pumps don't have support hands free pumping?

Yep, it has been taken away in a lot of places to prevent spilling.

When I did it in Australia the attendant turned off the pump and scolded me.

The lift in my condo in Bangkok plays ads with obnoxious audio.

I went there a few months ago and around 80% of the cabs I took had ads. There also was a power off button accessible with a few taps in all of them (which my friends and I committed to muscle memory pretty quickly)

NYC cabs have played ads for a long time now. However you can press a button on the screen to stop them for your trip.

Same in NYC, been like that for years. However usually you can at least turn down the volume.

New York taxis played looping ads when i was there 8 years ago...

Lyft and Uber drivers can setup tablets in their cars that blare ads. They're fairly common in Chicago.

I've only been in one car that did that. I turned off the tablet and left a negative review.

NYC and Vegas also do this, but most have some kinda mute

they've been playing ads for 15 years. It's not new. It is annoying but there IS always an off button on the screen - in Japanese.

> Over in Japan, some of the taxis now play ads (obnoxious audio included!) for the passengers to watch.

I was in Boston like 10 years ago and saw this.

In the USA the last couple times I've had to use uber/lyft, there have been touch screen tablets with ads and games at max brightness in the back seat, strapped to the back of the front seats. At night it's blinding.

Why stop at Taxis? You could be required to watch a short ad before pumping some gas or entering a restroom.

They already have pumps that play ads :)

Or, there will be special robotaxis for dates, with extras catering to that market.

These would almost certainly be repurposed for prostitution, though.

Gay-themed ones might give new meaning to the term "cruising".

I would expect the terms and conditions to allow for resale of any pron produced in the taxi.

They'll give out free rides for those willing to become content creators.

> What's the point of robotaxis if you can't screw in them?

What's the point of me taking a robotaxi if the two people before me could potentially have had sex in it?

Good luck finding an airbnb that hasn't been recently used by someone else.

If it's not cleaned between users then it's an illegal airbnb

To get from point A to point B I would assume. Id be way more concerned about someone getting in to shoot up and OD'ing in there. Instead of getting a taxi you end up with a dead body delivery.

i mean let's be real, the robotaxi is goanna get dirty and i won't want to use it :D so yea

So, basically they’re going to devolve into the conditions that Uber and Lyft were created to fix. Awesome.

Sounds like, "what else are you going to do on a 12hr flight. Of course you should watch porn and jackoff in your seat".

I'd just post the videos in public. The riders will hopefully get fired from their jobs as their employeer's can't handle the controversy and quickly people will learn that sex is a robotaxis is sex in public and learn to behave.

I have no problem if you buy your own level 5 car and have sex in it. I have a much bigger problem with people having sex in shared vehicles that are not cleaned between riders.

Anybody remember the HBO show "Taxicab Confessions?" People seemed to be having sex in taxis even with a driver, this isn't that surprising.

Having known several taxi drivers myself, the main difference is likely there's nobody to yell at you to clean up after yourself.

This is exactly what my first thought was. This is a futuristic/dystopian version of taxicab confessions.

Nobody there to see it but also no human to confide in after a late night.

People take taxis when they are drunk. People are more likely to engage in sex while drunk. People take taxis when they want a degree of privacy as they travel, as opposed to busses. People are more likely to have sex when in a semi-private space. A taxi provides a degree of physical security, a barrier between you and the mob. Why is this a surprise? In SF I expect that some taxi startup will soon target this market directly.

I don't take taxi for the privacy but because public transports suck in Paris at night. Past 2AM the metro doesn't works, the train to Versailles (next to where I live) doesn't work, the bus to my city also doesn't works.

The second biggest issue when taking public transport while drunk, is sleeping and missing your stop.

Slightly related, but found it interesting that the main image on what is at least semi-purported to be a news article is a midjourney AI image (though kudos to the article for clearly identifying this).

Stock photo businesses are deaaaaad.

Edit: though if you look at it the actual configuration of this "back seat of the taxi" in this image is completely bizarre.

People have sex everywhere they can. Maybe it'll be a little higher than 'sex in regular cars' but I doubt it'll be measurable.

You kidding?

If the two of you are having an affair, you can take the whole $250 hotel room and 30 minutes’ drive each way/each person and replace it with a $20 driverless taxi and literally get the entire sordid experience delivered to your door.

The “I don’t think that’ll be a thing” is adorable, like people thinking hotels that rent by the hour are geared toward people who just need a couple hours of sleep.

I see this blurring the lines between OnlyFans and transportation- get the transport service for free in exchange for the footage. Unless you’re terrible to watch, then it’s merely discounted.

If people watch Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, why wouldn’t they pay to watch this?

I got lost in the middle, are you saying there's porn involving Jerry Seinfeld condescending people?

Brilliant!

“Get Lost In The Middle” is what they’d call it.

So what's the deal with people that want to frack in a small space?

There’s more to having an affair than just the sex.

True, the economies of scale here will really only kick in once the robotaxis can also pick up your food order en route.

Nah, we can program the drones to deliver wine and cigarettes to a moving vehicle.

Sometimes. Sometimes not. What’s your point?

Lots of people have affairs with people that they can see professionally, or openly in a platonic setting. So the only part of the relationship that has to be really hidden is the intimacy.

Personally though I think people will still choose hotels over the back problems that come with doing it in the backseat like a teenager.

Thankfully (?) Cruise is already deploying their L4/5 pod vehicles, that don't have a front drivers seat, so it's more of a cabin and less like the back seat of a car.

https://twitter.com/robertghilduta/status/166783863071352832...

> Maybe it'll be a little higher than 'sex in regular cars' but I doubt it'll be measurable.

It's going to be super measurable and that's why there's already an article about it: if you're two in a regular car, with one person driving, you can't really have sex (it's doable I guess but dangerous and illegal).

Now if you're three in a regular car, with a driver, the two that could have sex typically wouldn't (for privacy reasons: they don't want to do it next to the driver, except in some cases).

I don't doubt that some regular cab drivers had people having sex in their taxi but I'm willing to bet that 99% of the time when they take two people, these two people aren't having sex.

> and illegal

Lustified horny people have never broken the law in pursuit of having sex.

There's a video on pornhub of a couple having sex in a full self driving Tesla and Elon Musk even commented on it! I guess the question is, does road head count as "sex"?

> “We record video inside of the car for added safety and support,” Cruise states on its website.

Either they're unaware that they have no expectation of privacy in self-driving car, or they welcome being watched

Hopefully the latter.

Or they are drunk

And this is why I suspect “renting out the family car” while you work won’t be a thing.

Amusing little article while this is still a novel service. If this is actually happening, it will stop almost immediately because the combination of passenger-facing cameras and non-anonymous rides will get you barred for life.

More like for the life of that particular service, which could be weeks or decades.

> The Standard was unable to find a source who said they’d had sex in a Waymo.

> “The vast majority of our riders are respectful and follow our rider rules,” a Waymo spokesman said.

Yes, I'm sure the reason is because Waymo riders are just superior and not because they have less market (or otherwise) penetration.

Gotta love when GM is able to force their way through the approvals processes because they're GM!

This is one of those times that I remember that people are basically just monkeys with clothes.

> “It was really funny because [the Cruise] got quite hot and fogged up to the point that the windshield was completely fogged over — in any other context, in any other vehicle, that would be an actual problem,”

Hahahahaha. So on the one hand this is a (somewhat?) positive article, even if it's looking for trouble. In that it's normalizing the self-driving car. It's taking it as a given and writing about something else. That's intesting in showing acceptance.

On the other hand, the developers are then going all "we are actively working to put a stop to that". This is why we can't have nice things.

Perhaps the passenger facing cameras are having the opposite intended effect?

Everyone thinks this is fun until you sit on a wet spot on your way to work the next morning.

Huxley's 21st century is upon us.

There was a guy that started a mobile sex-box-truck in the Bay Area a few years ago - you could pay to have it pick you up and drive around while you have sex in the back while he drove around...

Now, with robotaxis you dont need to worry about the driver - but how many cams are in the cab of the robotaxi

"welcome to Johnny Cab"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWgrvNHjKkY

Surge pricing indeed.

So there’s no user ratings yet? I guess the beta testers are having fun with it.

Well, this is unofficial "option" of older taxis. I've few times hear, that for some not too large amount of money, driver could allow couple to stay alone in taxi for few minutes.

What kind of prudish 1950s bullshit is this?

"questionable behavior", "dirty", "debauchery", "accomplice", "unseemly behavior". I stopped reading after that.

Well, the woman in the article said it was exciting because it felt wrong, so I guess it’s going along with that idea in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way.

So what? It's not like you can realistically expect a public sitting surface to be clean anyway. So long as you don't leave a mess I don't care.

The sanitation aspect of this is the real issue. Propriety has never been a priority for taxi passengers.

Clearly, people are talking about it.

this should be welcomed, we need to increase TFR (The Fuck Rate)

honestly what were people expecting lmao

I guess someone had this as a bucket item?

okay.

First of all gross. Secondly, I doubt it. SF reminds me of the Junior Anti-Sex League

It's gross for two reasons I think (not saying I necessarily relate to them): 1) communicable diseases, e.g. crabs., and 2) if someone has to maintain cleanliness for any religious purpose.

How does the religious cleanliness factor in?

For some Abrahamic religions (I am not sure about Christianity), being clean and being pure are distinct concepts. There are cases when one can be pure, but unclean/dirty and vice versa; having sex fluids on you is a case of being both (depending on your hygiene preferences). If it's just you or partners fluids, then one may not count that towards unclean, but it wouldn't be "clean" for a religious thingy.

Wasn't that the whole point? Why the Pikachu face lol?

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