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[Sergarr]

The future, it is full of ads!

[forsaken1111]

Yes. It would be terrible to get a free cab ride for the monumental cost of watching a few ads. Just awful.

[RedKing]

I could see a place for them, especially tourism-related. Ads for restaurants/places of interest along your travel path or in the vicinity of your arrival point, for instance.
Otherwise, just bring a book or something.

EDIT: And face it, we've seen that future. I thought Minority Report was fairly prescient with its depiction of targeted non-stop ads EVERYWHERE. And the fact that most people ignored them even as they swirled all around them in holographic glory and appeared on their milk cartons in full-motion video.

[Loud Whispers]

Yes. It would be terrible to get a free cab ride for the monumental cost of watching a few ads. Just awful.

I KNOW RIGHT? Jeezus, just get some double decker buses before it's too late guys. Do it before google does.

[forsaken1111]

I could see a place for them, especially tourism-related. Ads for restaurants/places of interest along your travel path or in the vicinity of your arrival point, for instance.
Otherwise, just bring a book or something.

"I'm sorry, Google only offers free fare to riders who watch the entire ad. Our in-cabin camera indicates that you have been reading a non-google product! This trip will cost you $85. Please swipe your credit card to unlock the doors, or press the 'Can't Pay' button to be driven to the nearest correctional facility free of charge!"

(Bonus Terror: read this in the voice of GladOS)

[RedKing]

Here's an interesting bit. Does that mean that blind people couldn't use GoogleCab? I would think the ads are probably video WITH audio, so it shouldn't matter.

Cause if it's just video, hell I can stare a screen while my eyes glaze over and I think about something else. Happens all the time.

[10ebbor10]

At the end of the cab ride, you have to answer a quiz about the ads.

[Sergarr]

At the end of the cab ride, you have to answer a quiz about the ads.

And also confirm that you're not a robot by correctly typing a 15 long number-letter combination.

[RedKing]

At the end of the cab ride, you have to answer a quiz about the ads.

And also confirm that you're not a robot by correctly typing a 15 long number-letter combination.

Considering how many drunk people rely on cabs, this would be a terrible captcha.

[Sergarr]

At the end of the cab ride, you have to answer a quiz about the ads.

And also confirm that you're not a robot by correctly typing a 15 long number-letter combination.

Considering how many drunk people rely on cabs, this would be a terrible captcha.

That raises an interesting question. Would a robot taxi passenger be allowed to drink, or not?

[RedKing]

Even more interesting: how many backseat trysts would you be liable to see if there's no driver to watch you? Although I suppose it's fair to assume the All-Seeing Eye of Google would be present.

Google Taxicab Diaries: This month on Cinemax After Dark!

[GlyphGryph]

Even more interesting: how many backseat trysts would you be liable to see if there's no driver to watch you? Although I suppose it's fair to assume the All-Seeing Eye of Google would be present.

Of course, google could decide to capitalize on this, the same way Xbox and PS4 have their own activities...

"GoogleCab, where's the share button? I want to post this to reddit."

[freeformschooler]

Have any of you guys been to those gas stations where they play TV ads as you're pumping (right next to the price ticker to distract you)? If you think the idea of ads in your paid car ride is ridiculous, well...

[DJ]

it's fully possible to sanitize things so that they can't take over your car

In theory it's fully possible to make any piece of software airtight, but in real world you have hackers finding security weaknesses in just about everything.

[alexandertnt]

I also imagine automated cars wouldn't be able to deal with off road conditions, such as driving on property, four wheel driving etc.

Why? If humans can operate machinery in any situation, robots can operate it better.

Why is a good question. If someone was to use a car primarily for the reasons I stated, what benefits does automation have? Your not travelling very fast or for very long and its very unlikely to be dangerous (except some more extreme four wheel driving, but thats usually done for entertainment).

The automated cars would have to be built to handle such situations (in a similar way cars are built specifically to handle off road conditions), and given the very small market share of people who would use their vehicles for that purpose its difficult to see a very profitable market there.

Still, how would automatic cars work if due to technical malfunction or something else they all lose their connections to the Internet?

How would cars work now if there was suddenly no fuel? Your basically asking "If I remove something important from a machine, how would it continue to work", which isn't a very useful question.

Maby if you could demonstrate that every car losing their internet connection is a likely situation then you could have a point. But even then as people have pointed out, they are designed to operate without an internet connection.