What a Robotaxi Removes Besides the Driver

The San Francisco Standard interviewed multiple people who claimed to have had sex in robotaxis belonging to General Motors' now-defunct Cruise. That is self-reported, but the design question underneath it is real: what does a car change when nobody is sitting up front to notice you? Ars Technica points to one structural difference between a robotaxi and a human-driven ride — the removal of the social obligation to interact with a human driver. The small talk goes; so does the witness, and the two are not the same kind of thing. Every choice made in the back seat loses its audience, not just its awkwardness. The cultural layer isn't new either. Human factors and UX researcher Alexandros Rouchitsas told Ars that you can see it in movies, in lyrics, in photography. The robotaxi didn't invent the fantasy of the car as a private room. It just removed the stranger who was supposed to be in it.