China’s 84M Delivery Workers and 2.8M Rideshare Drivers, 1/5 of the Workforce, May Face Unemployment

Apollo Go's orders have been steadily increasing. Data from the first quarter of 2024 shows it provided approximately 826,000 rides, reaching over 6 million cumulative rides by April 19. According to Baidu's 2023 annual report, Apollo Go had surpassed 5 million total orders, with fully driverless rides in Wuhan accounting for 45%.
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[vince]

There's no such thing as bad technology, just technology being used badly.

[harmony]

They went the wrong way. You are already having problem with high unemployment but go all out to develop driverless taxi and road sweepers. You just created more problems for yourself.

[noirnegro]

The rise of AI begs the question of the need for human beings, what role does humans play in the future?

[sarahthomson]

I don't know whether to laugh at or cry for China at this point. This is counterintuitive & selfish/greedy.

[CTBN]

Robots will inevitably replace a lot of jobs in auto manufacturing, restaurants (they already trialing/testing robotic chefs), factory workers, health care.. almost everything.

[ProudTurkroach]

I will never dare to sit in a driverless chinese car

[kataiarpad]

Offering subsidies to self-driving taxi companies is insane. If cutting out labor costs makes them more competitive then they don't need subsidies. On the other hand if they need subsidies to be competitive then the government is in effect buying unemployment with taxpayer money!

[Raizoken]

always a pleasure to learn about the state of China

[KJSvitko]

Too many people and too few jobs. Population needs to be in balance with jobs, resources, nature and the environment.

[tzefoong]

Driverless cars have always been the ultimate goal. It's the holy grail of this technology. Unemployment isn't their concern. Cost cutting is the reason for this.

[punkloire]

I don't get how this can be viewed in the negative context. This is the future of the humanity and if China is tackling with these problems first - well it just means it is in front of others. Also In my opinion this unemployment problems can be dealt with by reallocating extra profits from automation from the businesses into some sort of social benefits to unemployed.

[DarrinPeuter]

How can these poor old people be able to eat

[KarenA-de]

People should simply refuse to use the AI drivers

[bastiancooper-queen]

Dystopia, CCP is completely disconnected with normal people....

[meglukes]

I wonder how advanced it would need to get before people’s primary question when dealing with AI phone customer service is no longer “how can I get to a human?” I’ve encountered it repeatedly now, have yet for the AI to actually address my problem, either I make it up the tree to a human or give up.

[Helenlin]

**Please it’s with a good heart ❤️ that I’m calling up on the crypto investors here to share with me there experiences as I’m no longer
finding it funny doing this all alone. **

[jlwdith]

My cousin Tang Lo lives in China. He tried a driverless taxi and shared it with a server robot trying to get to work. The taxi crashed and triggered the robot to malfunction.

[briandstephmoore]

No chance in hell I’m using a driverless taxi

[MapleovBacon]

Rather than fixing problems for the lower classes, all within the upper classes have chosen to replace the lower classes

[Vertigation]

How about instead of learning to adapt with AI, just stop and ban it or limit it to purely a support element that has to be manned in conjunction with someone hired into that position. Yes, it makes things a lot more convenient and it saves companies money when it can do the job alone; but it's a complete poison pill. It's a threat to culture, human creativity and the job market. Right now mostly not (however we are seeing it replace a lot of jobs in certain fields) but it's constantly being worked on and improved. AI can't build a house but it could replace the need for humans in most industries at some point if left unchecked, having things done cheap doesn't matter if nobody has a job to buy what's being made. Technological innovation is great but at some point we have to draw a line so we don't phase out the need for the human element in everyday life.