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Fatbobman’s Swift Weekly #040 | Ensure “Driverless Cars” Don’t Lead to “Jobless Masses”
Weekly Comment
Ensure “Driverless Cars” Don’t Lead to “Jobless Masses”
Recently, Baidu (China’s largest search engine company)’s stock price has risen significantly, which is not unrelated to a widely circulated news story. Reportedly, Baidu’s autonomous ride-hailing platform “Apollo Go” deployed 1,000 self-driving taxis in Wuhan, achieving impressive market performance and triggering deep concern among some traditional taxi drivers.
Soon, the news was proven to be inaccurate. The actual operational scale is 400 vehicles, and in Wuhan’s market of nearly 20,000 taxis, this scale is not yet sufficient to cause a significant impact. Nevertheless, self-driving taxis have won favor with many consumers due to their more competitive prices, brand-new vehicle conditions, and better privacy experience. As the deployment scale expands, its impact on the existing market and numerous taxi (ride-hailing) practitioners will be inevitable and irreversible.
Like previous industrial revolutions, the rapid development of AI will inevitably impact many industries, even causing disruption. In this AI era, while enjoying its conveniences, each of us will face the challenges it brings. Facing this unavoidable structural change…
