I was walking around downtown Miami when I first saw one of those little wheeled robot guys who delivers your lunch. I was on the phone with my dad, who is 81 and who only recently stopped unplugging the Google Nest speaker I got for him and my mom when he walks in the kitchen so that it doesn’t spy on him. I told him I thought a robot was following me. He asked if I had a baseball bat.
The Petersens are not, as a rule, early adopters of new technology.
But eventually, we all have to adapt at least somewhat.
Take ridesharing. I am a South Florida native who was used to the taxi experience. I’d call a cab, and a while later one would arrive, or not. I’d slam around streets for awhile, heading in what felt vaguely like the direction of the airport while breaking laws of the city, the county and quite possibly physics. Eventually I’d arrive at my destination, where the driver would announce that, while they do take credit cards, the credit card machine is now broken but I can definitely pay in cash. This would resolve itself either in a trip to the nearest ATM or an insistence on my part that this credit card is all I have on me, which would then lead to the credit card machine’s miraculous rebirth.
I’m not saying it was a great system, but it was a system I knew. So it was weird the first time I hit a button on my phone and was told some youth in a Hyundai would be with me in six minutes.
But of course, now I’m used to it, to the point where it’s getting hard to remember what the old ways were even like. I called a company? On the phone? Did they send someone with a horse?
So too will it be with driverless cars. And apparently, that’ll be happening soon.
Driverless Waymo cars have been working in bits of South Florida, but not in areas I frequent as much. Now though, it seems - as the Laker reports in this issue - that they’re preparing to start serving Miami Lakes.
The first time I settle into the backseat of a car with no driver, it will be weird. But at this point, I’ve gotten used to a lot. Until just a few years ago, I had never held a conversation with my air conditioner. I had never banked with a bank that has no bank buildings. I had never bought sporting event tickets on the secondary market from a website and not a guy outside the stadium who can also sell me a watch and a jersey where “Marino” is misspelled. And I had absolutely never met up for Italian food and midrange Merlot with someone I met on an app.
But here we are. Times change, and it looks like Waymo is coming to Miami Lakes. When it happens, I will try my best to put aside my more Luddite inclinations and order one.
But I’m still bringing my baseball bat. You never know when you’re being followed.