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The competition between humans and artificial intelligence is intensifying.

We have heard too many "ghost stories" before: in a few years, many jobs of human beings will be replaced by artificial intelligence. Although we have been prepared for this, when faced with such large-scale replacement, humans still only use the most primitive way to express their dissatisfaction -

resist.

146 years ago in 1878, Thomas Edison demonstrated his first electric light in New York. Four years later, he built the first commercially available power station and began to provide partial electricity to citizens. From then on, large-scale electric lights replaced kerosene lamps, directly threatening the jobs of lamplighters.

In 1907, 600 lamplighters in New York City went on strike to protest the impact of the popularization of electricity on their lives. The city was dark that day. However, the application and development of electricity is unstoppable, and the so-called protest is just an expression of emotion. With the popularization of electricity and the advancement of technological revolution, more and more lamplighters have switched to electricity-related jobs, such as laying circuits, installing lamps or working in power stations.

When taxi drivers on the streets of Wuhan boycotted the autonomous taxi service of Turnipao, this moment was very similar to the New York lamplighters' strike in 1907.

Of course, the replacement of manual labor by technology requires a long period of adaptation. It took 21 years from the New York lamplighters' strike in 1907 to the announcement in 1928 that the last two lamplighters who specialized in lighting kerosene street lamps in New York would change their careers. If we start counting from the invention of the electric light in 1878, it took a full 50 years until 1928 for electric lights to truly dominate New York City.

We also believe that there will be a long period of competition, coexistence, and substitution before Robotaxi replaces traditional online ride-hailing services and taxis.

Technology is still on the eve of an explosion

Recently, Baidu deployed 500 "Lobo Kuaipao" driverless online-hailing taxis in Wuhan, and the number of orders increased significantly, sparking highly controversial discussions.

Compared with traditional online ride-hailing services, Luobo Kuaipao is more affordable, costing only 4 yuan per 6 kilometers, which is very cheap.

The emergence of Luobo Kuaipao caught many taxi drivers off guard, but in fact, driverless taxis have already begun operating in various cities.

According to the co-founder of Getui, "Kuaidao Qingyi", Baidu had a team focused on the research and development of driverless cars as early as 2013. In July 2017, Baidu released the "Apollo Project" and announced its entry into the field of driverless driving.

In 2019, Baidu established a test demonstration zone for intelligent connected vehicles in Wuhan and obtained the first batch ofAutopilotWith a commercial license, it began 24/7 operations, but at the time it had only a few vehicles, about 100 in total.

Baidu has been running in the streets of Wuhan for four or five years, and has accumulated enough data. According to Baidu's official data, Turnip Run has opened manned test operation services in 11 cities, and has carried out fully unmanned autonomous driving travel service tests in Beijing, Wuhan, Chongqing, Shenzhen and Shanghai. Among them, Wuhan is the largest autonomous driving operation service area.

Luobo Kuaipao's service area in Wuhan has reached 300 square kilometers, covering a population of 7.7 million. As of April 19, Luobo Kuaipao's cumulative service orders exceeded 6 million. At the earnings conference, Baidu founder, chairman and CEO Robin Li said that in the first quarter, the proportion of driverless orders in Wuhan exceeded 55%, and continued to rise to 70% in April, and is expected to rise rapidly to 100% in the next few quarters.

In addition to Baidu, other car companies are also actively investing in the field of driverless cars. According to Ruqi Travel, the company officially started the development and commercialization of Robotaxi in 2021, and currently provides commercial hybrid operations of manned online car-hailing and Robotaxi services in Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

The autonomous driving company Pony.ai has also acquired the technical foundation required for large-scale commercialization of L4 fully unmanned Robotaxi. Fully unmanned vehicles have achieved regular all-weather operation in the four first-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

Recently, Musk announced on social media that Tesla's strategic focus this year is also driverless taxis, and Robotaxi will be released on August 8, 2024, forming a head-on confrontation with Baidu's Robotaxi.

However, although major automakers are increasing their investment in driverless cars, it will still take several years for the technology to truly explode and be used commercially on a large scale.

From a technical point of view, to this day, autonomous driving still has an enemy that cannot be defeated for the time being: Corner Case.

Corner Case refers to an event with a very low probability of occurrence, which in the context of autonomous driving means "unpredictable targets appearing". This unpredictability is fundamentally contrary to the goal of autonomous driving, which is to predict all road conditions as much as possible.

For example, the currently operating Luobo Kuaipao online taxi was "scared" by various obstacles and dared not move. Upon closer inspection, it was found that what was "controlling" it was actually a green woven bag lying on the road. Facing this obstacle, Luobo Kuaipao looked helpless and would not go around it, but just stupidly stopped in front of the woven bag.

This is why the radish car is called "tiao radish" by the local people in Wuhan. In the Wuhan dialect, "tiao" means stupid.

Ultimately, the above situations are caused by the current driverless cars' inadequate judgment of road conditions and their lack of intelligence.

Zhang Xiaorong, director of the Deep Technology Research Institute, said in an interview with The Paper that although driverless technology has made significant progress in some aspects, it still has many limitations and challenges, including handling road conditions and driving in complex weather conditions. It will take a longer time and more technological advances to replace taxi drivers.

Technical issues have also made regulators cautious about the commercialization of Robotaxi. Generally speaking, the process from testing to road use to commercial operation is extremely long. Before obtaining a "driver's license" for driving on urban roads, self-driving taxis need to undergo four subjects: closed area testing, road testing, demonstration application, and demonstration operation. The most basic "closed area test" alone has more than 100 strict test standards, which not only have requirements for mileage and takeover frequency, but also prohibit any modification or upgrade of the test vehicle during the process.

This also means that the commercialization of Robotaxi will still be a long process. The industry's optimistic estimate is that it will reach the level of large-scale commercial use within five years.But most studies suggest that, while promising, progress is unlikely to leap forward.

Huafu Securities Research Report believes that the development of the Robotaxi industry requires joint promotion from all parties, among which autonomous driving technology companies drive the commercialization process of Robotaxi, and having mature L4+ technical support is the key to the implementation of Robotaxi.

It is estimated that by 2030, the proportion of domestic autonomous driving travel mileage will reach 11%, and the Robotaxi market size is expected to exceed one trillion yuan.

How to digest the pain of technology?

The pain of technological progress in the travel sector came too quickly. Just 10 years ago, online ride-hailing services such as Didi impacted traditional cruising taxis, and with their powerful technical capabilities, they had a crushing impact on the traditional taxi industry.

Ten years later, the traditional taxi industry has not been eliminated. Taxi drivers have basically joined the online ride-hailing platforms. “If I can’t beat you, I’ll join you.”

Looking back today, the impact of online ride-hailing platforms is the way of hailing a ride, from hailing a ride on the roadside to booking a ride online, from cars looking for people to people looking for cars. What remains unchanged is the job of the driver.But the changes brought about by Robotaxi are undoubtedly more drastic, directly replacing the profession of driver.

Why has the sudden popularity of Luobo Kuaipao caused so much anxiety? Because behind it are 10 million drivers and 10 million families.

According to data from the Ministry of Transport, there are about 1.3913 million taxis in my country. Assuming that each taxi is equipped with two drivers, there are about 2.8 million taxi drivers in the country. As for online car-hailing drivers, as of April 30, 2024, 349 online car-hailing platforms in the country have issued a total of 6.964 million online car-hailing driver licenses. The total number of the two is nearly 10 million.

This does not include the catering, car repair and transportation management personnel who serve the drivers. If all are counted, the livelihoods of tens of millions of people are involved. Especially under the current circumstances of relatively high employment pressure, people's anxiety can be imagined.

Of course, the pain brought about by technological progress must also be viewed from multiple perspectives.

For example, are driverless taxis really cheaper than online ride-hailing cars? At present, the lowest price for Luobo Kuaipao in Wuhan is 0.8 yuan per kilometer, and the current pricing system is indeed much lower than that of the same industry.

According to information obtained by CyberCar, the price of Carrot Run is about 3/4 of that of online car-hailing services under the same conditions. However, this is the figure displayed after Baidu spent a huge amount of money on subsidies.

In other words, this is Baidu's investment during the promotion period, attracting users through extreme cheapness. Once there are enough users, the subsidies will be cancelled and the price will gradually return to the original price.

For example, while driverless taxis are eliminating some jobs, they are also creating some.At present, many driverless cars are actually equipped with safety officers. Although some cars do not have people in them, they actually have remote safety officers.

In 2020, autonomous driving still required a "front-office safety officer" who sat in the driver's seat and held the steering wheel. At that time, the ratio of "front-office safety officer" to car was 1:1. Today, the "front-office safety officer" of autonomous driving has become a "back-office safety officer".

The backend pictures circulated from Baidu also prove this point. The Carrot Express driverless taxi is not completely driverless. Real drivers take over remotely on difficult road sections.

According to some research data, there is about one driver in the background to manage three cars on the road, and some other auxiliary personnel are needed, so there are about six people to manage 10 cars, which is not yet 1:2. With the advancement of technology, it is likely to reach 1:10, or even lower.

Therefore, although Luobo Kuaipao eliminated many local driver jobs, it also created other jobs such as safety officers.

At the same time, with the development of the new business model of Robotaxi, new application scenarios and new professions will emerge. The most typical example is the British "Red Flag Act" when the car was first born. The original regulations stipulated that every motor vehicle on the road must be driven by three people. When the vehicle is moving, one of the drivers must guide the vehicle in front and hold a red flag to issue warnings.

This bill may seem a little ridiculous today, but it is also a new job created by technological advancement.

The current consensus in the market is that the introduction of driverless taxis must take into account safety and people's livelihood. In the short term, the transport capacity of driverless cars is relatively small, and the actual impact on the traditional taxi (online car-hailing) market is not great, but the psychological impact is not small; in the medium term, driverless cars and traditional online car-hailing cars will coexist; in the long term, after the technology matures, driverless cars will completely replace human driving, but there is no consensus on how long this long period will be.

Gartner, a world-renowned research organization, once proposed a hype cycle model for new technologies, dividing the relationship between the maturity of new technologies and public attention into five stages: technology triggering, expectation inflation peak, bubble burst trough, steadily climbing recovery and productivity plateau. At present, driverless cars are still in the technology triggering stage, and there is a long way to go.

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No.5885 Original first article | Author Liang Yunfeng

References:Why do Wuhan people call driverless cars "苕萝卜"? China News Weekly; Carrot Express orders are skyrocketing? Will Robotaxi replace online ride-hailing cars? The Paper; Carrot Express, which is being debated online, is too early to subsidize. Logical Thinking; Carrot Express cannot threaten 10 million drivers, Yuanchuan Technology Review.

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