| For the last seven years at least, broad pronouncements have been made about what the arrival of autonomous cars would mean for American culture. But in late August, when I started hearing from friends in San Francisco that robotaxis were officially roaming the roads and available for civilian use, my questions were of the more banal variety. How good are they at parking? What’s it like to actually take one to work? Is riding in one thrilling or boring? And what’s it like to live in a city where they’re just … around? Curbed dispatched Theodore Gioia, a writer and critic living in San Francisco, to take robotaxis around town and write about what he saw. The piece is at once a witty, absurdist travelogue through a strange city at a strange juncture and a product review of a technology that may one day encroach upon all of our lives. (I’m thankful to Gioia for introducing me to a phrase I will certainly use from now on: “totalitarian twee.”) |
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