I'd rather a slow decline rather than growth that is designed to lock out as many workers as possible

Absolutely (just in case it wasn't clear that the all-caps were intended to convey sarcasm). I hate the idea of autonomous cabs possibly even more than I hate union-free gig-economy ride-hailing apps, because at least the latter "employs" people

I am actually open to being convinced autonomous cars could be better than human driven cars. I don't think it is the case but could be convinced.

The up side: they don't get drunk or distracted, they don't break laws, they don't nod off at the wheel. The down side: they circulate around adding a sometimes empty vehicle to traffic while some capitalist makes passive income off them, employing no one, & eating into public transit's modal share

They drive like they were drunk or incapacitated occasionally and are often distracted communicating with their remote human operators/assistants: bsky.app/profile/anic...

Also they perpetuate car dependency and car infrastructure at the expense of more sustainable and, I would argue, more sociable modes of transport.

to be fair, autotaxis like Waymo are slightly different in my head than individually owned autonomous cars though, because I really object to "buy fleet of autonomous cars, put them on the road, take up space, make profit: employ no one."

I’m not sure “they don’t break laws” holds. Their behaviour is governed by algorithm. I’m not convinced they follow the highway traffic act to the letter of the law (e.g. complete stop at stop sign, not exceeding speed limits).

Huh, I haven't been around or in one (because Canada) but it could very well be. Might have to look into it more. On a quick look, I'm seeing some "AV software was janky, resulting in crash" type stuff but not "AV was speeding" or "AV disregarded controlled intersection"

A few years back Tesla’s autonomous driving program was criticized for rolling through stop signs. I believe it was fixed but I can’t imagine they were the only ones.

I definitely recall a bit in a (I think) Cory Doctorow novel in which some rich jackhole had modified AI which caused their car to drive like an A-hole causing other vehicles to get out of its way. Very plausible, sadly.

Very plausible; Grok as FSD