(Wired) – Tailing a robotaxi for hours and hours is weird. And revelatory. And jealousy-inducing. But a driverless world is coming for all of us. So close the door and buckle up.

Autonomous cars—one of the canonical sci-fi conveniences—were the hottest thing in tech for a few years around 2018. Then a self-driving Uber being tested in Arizona killed a jaywalking pedestrian, regulatory scrutiny intensified, and a bunch of self-driving projects shut down amid a general period of disenchantment with tech. The whole autonomous driving industry started to seem less worthy of being taken seriously, if not completely on the ropes.

In reality it was a case of rope-a-dope. Investment capital kept pouring in. Since 2020, more than $11 billion has been committed to Alphabet subsidiary Waymo alone. And in the past few years, hundreds of empty electric Jaguar SUVs began cruising the streets in Waymo’s three US markets, eventually picking up passengers and charging them for rides. A similar fleet of white-SUV robotaxis fanned out across Wuhan around the same time, operated by the Baidu subsidiary Apollo Go. The long-imagined future is finally, quietly, here, and all signs point to it taking over fast. (Read More)