Here’s How You’ll Get Paid To Ride In A Self-Driving Car

Self-driving cars are gradually getting ready for prime time.

To-date, the public roadway tryouts of self-driving cars have primarily consisted of having a human back-up driver at the wheel, serving to monitor the driving, and acting as a safety operator that can take over the driving controls if needed. This meant that any passengers in the self-driving car were still potentially reliant upon a human driver, albeit that much of the time the AI driving system was driving the vehicle.

You’ve likely seen in the news that some of the self-driving car companies are now aiming to remove the back-up driver and let the AI do all the driving. As such, the occupants in the self-driving car will entirely be passengers, going along for the ride and not taking part in doing any of the driving.

It is both exciting and somewhat unnerving to sit in a self-driving car during a driving journey and see a completely empty driver’s seat (for my eye witness coverage on what it is like, see the link here). Watching the steering wheel going back-and-forth, seemingly on its own, becomes mesmerizing and can stoke a certain amount of awe. It can also cause shivers up your spine as you silently wonder about whether the AI will do its job properly or not.

Do not though be misled as to what these latest trials portend.

An aspect that is not especially pointed out is that these experimental roadway efforts are within constrained or limited areas and otherwise relatively narrow in scope. Referred to formally as the Operational Design Domain (ODD), self-driving cars are currently crafted to focus on a geographically bounded area, and might have other stipulations such as not being ready to drive in adverse weather, or can only drive during daylight hours, and so on.

You could say that your mileage will vary, in the sense that the self-driving cars are first toying with confined ODDs and we’ll have to wait and see how this goes.

Eventually, after a wide array of ODDs are tested out and successfully achieved, presumably we might see self-driving cars that can be essentially unconstrained in that they are permitted to drive anywhere that you might be able to drive. I mention this aspect of driving where humans drive since the official standards indicate that a self-driving car is only held to the requirement of driving where humans are capable to drive, not necessarily having to be able to drive in circumstances that humans would not viably be able to drive (i.e., human-managed drivability).

It is generally assumed that ultimately the mainstay use of self-driving cars will be for ride-sharing purposes.

In theory, since there is no human driver needed for a true self-driving car, the vehicle can be utilized nearly 24×7 and continually be underway (excluding time for fueling, maintenance, etc.). There is no need to try and find a driver or make sure that a driver is suitable for driving a car. The driver, the AI driving system, willingly runs all the time, won’t get drunk, and can drive whenever so called upon to do so. Note that cars today are only used about 5% of the time, meaning that they sit around as underutilized and expensive assets for nearly 95% of the time.

Via ridesharing, most pundits predict that self-driving cars could be a tremendous moneymaker. There will be some owners of self-driving cars that are large companies such as the automakers, ride-sharing firms, rental car firms, and other corporations, and they will put forth a fleet of self-driving cars, hoping to make bundles of money.

Note that I have also espoused that individuals will also seek to own self-driving cars and be able to make cash accordingly too. This is considered a contrarian viewpoint and there are doubts expressed that this will occur. In any case, imagine that when you are at the office for work that your owned self-driving car is running around providing ride-sharing lifts, and likewise at nighttime while your head is resting on your pillow at home that your self-driving car will be earning dough for you. The rest of the time, you’ll ride around in your self-driving car for your own purposes, such as your daily commute or getting over to the local grocery store.

Either way that things play out, the core and the seemingly “obvious” assumption is that people will pay to take rides in self-driving cars, just like people do so for today’s use of human-driven ride-sharing and assorted taxi-related services.

There is no doubt that most of the time, you’ll be paying to have a self-driving car give you a ride. One hope is that the cost of using a self-driving car will be less than that of human-driven conventional cars, indeed a lot less costly, and thus there will be an opportunity for those that today are mobility disadvantaged to be able to become more mobile. That’s a certainly laudable outcome if it turns out that way.

There is a bit of an interesting twist that I’ve pointed out and tends to (again) be a somewhat contrarian viewpoint.

Here’s the intriguing and out-of-the-box aspect to contemplate: Are there going to be circumstances that people will get paid to ride in self-driving cars, and if so, what would the Top 5 reasons consist of?

Let’s unpack this claim and see.

Understanding The Levels Of Self-Driving Cars

As a clarification, true self-driving cars are ones that the AI drives the car entirely on its own and there isn’t any human assistance during the driving task.

These driverless vehicles are considered a Level 4 and Level 5 (see my explanation at this link here), while a car that requires a human driver to co-share the driving effort is usually considered at a Level 2 or Level 3. The cars that co-share the driving task are described as being semi-autonomous, and typically contain a variety of automated add-on’s that are referred to as ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems).

There is not yet a true self-driving car at Level 5, which we don’t yet even know if this will be possible to achieve, and nor how long it will take to get there.

Meanwhile, the Level 4 efforts are gradually trying to get some traction by undergoing very narrow and selective public roadway trials, though there is controversy over whether this testing should be allowed per se (we are all life-or-death guinea pigs in an experiment taking place on our highways and byways, some contend, see my coverage at this link here).

Since semi-autonomous cars require a human driver, the adoption of those types of cars won’t be markedly different than driving conventional vehicles, so there’s not much new per se to cover about them on this topic (though, as you’ll see in a moment, the points next made are generally applicable).

For semi-autonomous cars, it is important that the public needs to be forewarned about a disturbing aspect that’s been arising lately, namely that despite those human drivers that keep posting videos of themselves falling asleep at the wheel of a Level 2 or Level 3 car, we all need to avoid being misled into believing that the driver can take away their attention from the driving task while driving a semi-autonomous car.

You are the responsible party for the driving actions of the vehicle, regardless of how much automation might be tossed into a Level 2 or Level 3.

Self-Driving Cars And Getting Paid To Ride

For Level 4 and Level 5 true self-driving vehicles, there won’t be a human driver involved in the driving task.

All occupants will be passengers.

The AI is doing the driving.

People will pay to ride in self-driving cars.

And I assert fervently, there will be circumstances whereby people will get paid to ride in self-driving cars.

How so?

We’ll start with the famous line that if you are not paying for something that you are getting, you aren’t the customer and instead you are the product (this is infamously a widespread saying, traceable to the 1970s and referred to people as they watched TV, though the exhortation was made especially noteworthy during the advent of social media).

Suppose a firm hawking life insurance wanted to get your undivided attention in hopes of your buying their insurance.

The insurer might cut a deal with a self-driving car fleet owner and offer the following. If a rider requesting a self-driving car lift meets various criteria related to the propensity to buy life insurance, and if during the ride a series of ads will get displayed inside the self-driving car, the insurer will not only cover the cost of the ride, they’ll pay the passenger to take the ride.

This might be a savvy deal for the insurance company.

Assuming that the cost of the ride itself is going to be relatively low, and the added cost to pay the passenger is relatively modest too, the insurer has that passenger in an essentially guaranteed confined space and can bombard them with ads. Also, keep in mind that self-driving cars are likely to be outfitted with interactivity, such as allowing people to take an online course while say on their daily commute. In that sense, the insurer might display a canned video ad, and potentially make available remotely a live human agent (a salesperson) that does an online chat with you during your ride inside the self-driving car.

Your first thought might be that you’d gladly take a free ride and cherry-on-top get paid, simply by having to ensure a sales pitch. Part of the reason you might be so willing to go along with this notion is that you figure you could readily ignore the ad anyway. All you need to do is put on your headphones and listen to music on your smartphone, or perhaps stare outside the window of the car and watch the scenery, ignoring completely the ads being shoveled at you.

Well, it might not be as easy as you think to disregard the ads.

Realize that self-driving cars will have cameras pointed inward, doing so for purposes of letting you do interactive discussions remotely, perhaps conferencing into your work while making the morning commute. Those cameras are also intended to catch people marking graffiti inside a ridesharing self-driving car or otherwise attempting to damage the interiors. All in all, this gives the owner of the self-driving car a chance to watch what is happening inside the vehicle during a driving journey.

This ties to the advertisements in that the deal might be that you have to be avidly looking at the video ads to get the promised money for being a passenger. There is AI that could easily do monitoring of the inward-facing camera and detect whether you are looking at the ad versus looking outside at the passing scenery or that you are staring down at a cat video on your smartphone. If you aren’t attentive to the ad, you lose the pledged payment and perhaps even will get charged for taking the self-driving car ride.

How do you like those apples?

Again, some might refuse to take up such an offer, while others might be quite willing to act on it.

Undoubtedly, this will raise hackles and consternation. This approach could be accused of being an elitist kind of scheme that entraps those unable to otherwise afford to use a self-driving car. Another angle is that it could be a privacy invasion of sorts since it not only would possibly capture info generally about you, there would also be a complete video and audio taping of you that the advertiser could presumably retain and reuse as they see fit.

Moving on, a variant of this aforementioned approach consists of paying you to go someplace in particular.

Suppose a high-end jewelry store is having a special sale. They want to attract customers to come and hopefully purchase a pricy necklace or a tony speckled bracelet at their brick-and-mortar store. There might be prospective customers that would come but do not want to drive there per se, which might entail dealing with parking of their car and coping with traffic hassles. The easiest way to get there would be via a self-driving car, which could drop them off directly at the door of the jewelry store.

Similar to the earlier points, the jewelry store might do a deal with a self-driving car firm to offer payment for the ride and the rider too. In this case, the destination is fixed. The self-driving car will pick you up at your home or office and whisk you directly and only to the jewelry store. This prevents those sneaky riders that might figure they could falsely agree to the trip and then reroute the self-driving car or have it stop sooner. Of course, you could still be tricky, perhaps once you get delivered to the door of the jewelry store, you wanted to go there anyway since it is at the local mall, and now you got a paid ride to the mall.

As an aside, I’ve suggested herein that those companies that want to get your attention are going to contract with a fleet owner of self-driving cars and do the deals in that fashion. It could be that the companies doing these types of efforts will purchase self-driving cars for their own use. Thus, rather than paying a middleman as it were, an insurance company or a jeweler might outright own a self-driving car or have a set of such vehicles and use them extensively. This would be a relatively straightforward cost-benefit calculation as to whether it is more prudent to do a deal with someone else or to buy and utilize the vehicles on their own.

Shifting gears, consider other ways in which you could get paid to ride in a self-driving car.

For this next example, it is a bit of a twist so please bear with me for the context.

One issue that will arise with true self-driving cars is the riding around of children inside self-driving cars and doing so without any in-car adult being present (see my analysis of this, at the link here). A busy parent wants to send their kids over to the school and thus plunks them down into a self-driving car, waves goodbye, and the vehicle presumably takes them directly non-stop to the school grounds. Some people say they will never allow their children to ride without an adult present, worried that the kids might go awry, possibly try to jump out of a moving car, or maybe have a mugger that tries to get into the vehicle, and other such horrifying possibilities.

Nonetheless, the convenience of having kids riding in self-driving cars is going to be alluring. Furthermore, potentially, the parent can at least watch the kids via the inward-facing cameras and be able to interact with them while they are on their driving journey. Of course, there is little the parent can do if something adverse occurs within the vehicle, but at least the parent will be aware and could take some remote action.

Anyway, this build-up brings us to the next reason that you might get paid to ride in a self-driving car.

You could get paid to be a kind of chaperon or “nanny” overseeing kids that are riding in a self-driving car. Having an adult present in the vehicle would be handy in case something goes kilter such as a child starts to choke on some candy they just ingested or for handling other such situations.

I’ve predicted that this could become a full-time occupation for those interested in performing the simple act of riding along in self-driving cars, serving as a rider with a purpose. Think of it this way. We currently know that a human driver in a ride-sharing car can potentially aid the passengers in their car. The true self-driving car lacks that human driver. Ergo, perhaps it makes sense to add a human into the vehicle, a responsible adult, aiming to assist kids when they go for a ride (or, aid others such as the elderly that need an extra hand, and others).

Just as today’s ride-sharing drivers can work full-time or part-time, these ride-a-long chaperons could work full-time or part-time. They might be listed on various ride-sharing networks and in a coordinated fashion be arranged to be inside the self-driving car for a lift that you’ve requested. When the self-driving car arrives at your house to pick up the kids, you meet the chaperon, and then away they all go inside the self-driving car.

Unimaginable?

I think it is quite imaginable and indubitably practical.

Consider college students that need to earn some extra money. In-between taking classes, they ride around throughout the day, ready and working as a child-watching chaperon. Any unused time is spent studying for their classes or even taking classes online while traveling inside the self-driving car.

Anyway, it is a means to be paid for riding in a self-driving car, though admittedly in this use case you are working as a chaperon while doing so.

The next reason for getting paid to be a passenger in a self-driving car is a bit gloomy, so get yourself ready for this one.

Suppose that some people are fearful of using self-driving cars. They vow they will never set foot into a self-driving car. It just seems eerie to not have a human driver and therefore they refuse to try it out.

A fleet owner of self-driving cars might decide that to increase the base of users or customers, they will run a special promotion. Take a ride in a self-driving car and you’ll get paid for doing so. It might be that the deal is only valid during the slow times of the day or on days of the week that ridership in the self-driving car is quite low.

This is the classic give-a-taste and hook-the-fish kind of gambit.

A variant on this approach involves the possibility that self-driving cars might find themselves in a fiercely competitive landscape.

Imagine that “desperate” fleet owners of self-driving cars are trying to woo people away from taking human-driven ridesharing. Or perhaps there is a glut of self-driving cars in a given area, being run by differing fleet owners, and so one of them decides to stand out by offering a promotion by offering (temporarily) to pay riders and hopefully create a semblance of customer loyalty.

Endless permutations.

The last reason and one that preferably will not arise involves the chances that a self-driving car gets into a deadly incident and causes widespread dread, sparking a tsunami-like reaction of people avoiding the use of self-driving cars.

One means to get people to get back into the saddle, as it were, might be that after presumably making AI system changes to try and ensure that no such incident will recur, some fleet owners might initially be willing to pay people to start riding in their self-driving cars, attempting to prime the pump all over again.

Conclusion

Okay, now that we’ve covered some of the major reasons why you’ll get paid to go for a ride in a self-driving car, we can rank them as follows:

1)     To be served ads during the ride

2)     To be taken to a specific destination as a prospective or existing customer

3)     To be a paid chaperon

4)     To give you a taste of wanting to ride in self-driving cars

5)     To overcome reluctance to use self-driving cars

In case you were thinking you could become rich while getting paid to ride in self-driving cars, I’d caution that you are perhaps overthinking the matter and wishfully overstating the money to be made by doing so.

Probably, your better chance for riches might be by devising ways for people to get paid to ride in self-driving cars and then arranging for it to happen, taking a fee for setting things up. Alternatively, you might simply use the time will inside a self-driving car, while getting paid to be a rider, by contemplating other ways to get rich.

That would be quite a feat, namely while being paid to ride, you have a eureka moment and identify some altogether other means to become rich.

As a helpful heads-up, just don’t blurt out your idea while inside that self-driving car, since the AI might hear you, and the next thing you know, your idea has been stolen and used by someone or something else.

Be wary of the AI.