May 18, 2018

Dirty and Inevitable: The Uses of AVs

From Slate:
Jeffrey Tumlin, a strategist at San Francisco-based transportation consultancy Nelson/Nygaard, and interim head of the Oakland department of transportation, predicts that self-driving cars could become vehicles for prostitution services — essentially fitted out to be self-driving brothels.
Putting aside for a moment the very serious questions a sex-on-demand robot car raises about safety and human trafficking, think about the mess. Perhaps these vice cars will specialize.
But even so, it’s still not a stretch to imagine that people—teenagers, adulterers, or other couples caught up in the moment—will avail themselves of the perceived privacy of a driverless car during a standard trip.
Do you really want to be picked up by a self-driving taxi that has someone’s used condom on the floor?
More fun and astute predictions from Jeff Tumlin here.

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  1. Perhaps they will be self-cleaning too, like the street corner toilet modules in Europe. As you leave the vehicle it goes into scanning-sensing mode, sees the offending condom, sends mini-roomba out from under the seat, cleans up, bills you retroactively for your indiscretion. Another automated service of the service economy.

  2. This brings a new connotation to the old idea of interior sex lights. Will these cars be known as ‘vehicles of ill repute’? And will fleet owners be charged under a new Bawdy Shop law?

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