Waymo Has to Pay People $22 to Close Stuck Robotaxi Doors

In the 2016 press release that announced Waymo as “Google’s self-driving car project,” CEO John Krafcik wrote that “self-driving technology could be useful in ways the world has yet to imagine, creating many new types of products, jobs, and services.”

Nine years later, Waymo vehicles are on the roads, and while they obviously don’t create jobs for drivers, that press release was right about one thing: I never imagined that closing a car door for $22 would be a legitimate work gig, but it is now.

A Washington Post story on Thursday looks at tow truck operators who use an app called Honk to get paid to perform services for Waymo. One tow company owner, Evangelica Cuevas, describes a pretty bleak situation for herself and her drivers, being offered “$22 to $24” to close Waymo doors, and “$60 to $80” to tow them, perhaps because one ran out of juice while looking for a charger.

A University of Southern California data scientist named Georgios Petropoulos told the Post, “Humans are needed to interact with automated systems to make sure that service is provided in an efficient and safe way.”

And as the Post’s Lisa Bonos puts it: “The door-closing and towing gigs being picked up by Marenco and others in Los Angeles are examples of how as automation advances, it can create new work for humans pressed into service to patch over its shortcomings.”

Overall, it’s a disquieting vision of the future of work.