A possible U-turn for driverless cars?

Make Me Smart August 14 , 2023 Transcript

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Kai Ryssdal 

We can do what ever we want. Okay, everybody ready? I guess. Yes. We’ll take that as a yes, Jayk Cherry. Oh your hosts are gonna start whenever the engineer wants. Hey, everybody. I’m Kai Ryssdal. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make today make sense. Kimberly is off on vacation. She is literally trekking through the Himalayas. I am jealous as all, get out. Matt Levin though. is here today anyway, to hold down the fort. Matt hello. Welcome back. It’s good to have you on.

Matt Levin 

Hey, Kai, thanks for having me. It’s good to be back.

Kai Ryssdal 

You bet. Alright, so we took last week off as as everybody knows, lots to catch up on. We’re gonna do the news. We’re gonna do a little smile. And then in 12 to 15 minutes you can get on about your day. Mr. Levin, what do you got? What are you want to talk about?

Matt Levin 

I am a selfish reporter so I want to do a follow up to a story I did last week, if that’s okay. I didn’t know Kimberly is in the Himalayas. That’s amazing.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She’s literally she’s trekking. It’s crazy. I saw it. She posted some Instagram reel from Bhutan on her way. Wow. Easy.

Matt Levin 

Yes. She continues to live the life that I want to lead.

Kai Ryssdal 

Of all Marketplacers, I would say that she and Sabri Ben-Achour take the best vacations. I don’t know if you saw on Insta, but holy cow.

Matt Levin 

Yeah, I agree with that. Okay, getting back to me being a selfish reporter. On Thursday, I did a story about Robo taxis. You remember this one Kai? I do. So the news peg was whether the California Public Utilities Commission was going to approve robotaxis to pretty much do mostly whatever they wanted to in the streets of San Francisco. So ferry people from one location to another and charge a fare for doing so 24 hours a day. The decision came after the show aired. And the decision was yes, the California Public Utilities Commission said Yeah, Waymo and Cruise, which are the two big robotaxi companies that have pilot programs in San Francisco, you can now kind of compete with Uber and Lyft as you see fit. Cruise is owned by General Motors. Waymo is owned by Google. So there’s just a couple of things I want to hit here and maybe get your reaction to that didn’t make it into the story. One was that was watching public comment on this decision, which if you’re you know, if you don’t have like a streaming show that you know, “Succession” ended, or whatever, and you’re looking for something else, I would highly recommend public comment for any California state or local agency. It’s highly entertaining. But something interesting that did pop up in public comment was there were several Trans activists and disabled activists who were expressing their support for robotaxis basically saying they’ve been in situations where Uber and Lyft drivers, once they see them, they literally just drive on by right. Or they felt other sources of discrimination from Uber and Lyft. Drivers, you know, akin to you know, what Black cab riders have been facing it for sure, you know, across the country for forever. Right. And so I thought that was super interesting as a, you know, one of the arguments for this service. The other part, which I’m interested in, in your thoughts, no, I was looking at this in a different way than I than I think I used to because of generative artificial intelligence because of ChatGPT and because it is likely a threat to a lot of white collar work, and I am looking at this type of automation kind of in a different way. Then if ChatGPT never appeared on the scene, and I’m very curious whether there will be some riders who say, You know what, enough with the robots? I’m going to ride with a human.

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. I think you are right. Yep. I think there will be a backlash against all this technology. Absolutely. For sure. I think that you’re seeing it already with ChatGPT and the language models and people just sort of not opting out, but choosing to at their own risk, right, because this stuff is coming. Whether they’re ready or not, they’re closing their eyes, they’re putting their fingers in their ears, and they’re going la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la la. And look, there will absolutely be people, my mother as just one example, who will not get into a taxi cab or a bus eventually, right. unless there’s a human behind the wheel. Right. And you totally understand that because it’s weird, and it’s new. But in some short number of years, I don’t want to put a time frame on it, because this stuff moves both slower and faster than you think it will. In some number of years, there will be city buses out there with no drivers and that’s the way you have to get around. If my mom wants to go to the grocery store up in Portland, she’s gonna have to get on a driverless bus and and and that’s just the way it’s gonna be. But it’s I think, convincing people that it’s okay and safe and, and technology will not kill them, mostly, is going to be a long haul. Truly.

Matt Levin 

I was talking less about the safety element and more a I feel like there is a rising just kind of anti-robot sentiment, I can’t believe the words that are coming out of my mouth. By the way, this is all still incredibly surreal. But does that make sense as in now the threat of automation has moved to more white-collar jobs, and perhaps some white collar workers are more sympathetic to the Uber driver or the Lyft driver that might eventually or the bus driver that might eventually get replaced.

Kai Ryssdal 

Right. Right. And and as those concerns move up the income ladder right, then that’s right. And positions of authority and power, start paying attention to them, and then it gets more traction. Yeah, that could totally be it could totally be for sure. For freaking sure.

Matt Levin 

All right. That’s all I kind of wanted to hit. Okay. Well, what do you got?

Kai Ryssdal 

I’ve got two. And I will say actually, just because we were off last week, I have a whole rant about college sports and football in the conference realignment that I’m not going to go on to because I’m late to the party.

Matt Levin

That’s so sad.

Kai Ryssdal

Man that pisses me off.

Matt Levin

Yeah me too.

Kai Ryssdal

But anyway, so I’ve got two things, two things that are sort of more on the news number one, Argentina, the presidential primary, holy cow. So the Argentinians which had been suffering with inflation at 100 plus percent for a good long while now. You know, we were down there, my family was last summer, and it was 200ish pesos to the dollar. Now, it’s like 600 or 700 pesos to the dollar. It’s really terrible. Anyway, huge, huge upset in the presidential primary out there. There’s a congressman named Javier Milei who won the primary. And more importantly, is number one, very aligned with Donald Trump and his views on things. Number two thinks the Argentinian central bank ought to be and this is a paraphrase, if not a direct quote, “burned down,” wants to put the American dollar as the currency down there, which is going to be tricky, because the Argentine government is actually out of American dollars, they don’t have any. And he also wants to do things like allowing human or- human organs to be sold on the open market. So it’s going to be interesting in Argentina when the presidential actual election comes around, and we see what happens because holy cow things are taking a turn. Holy cow taking turn.

Matt Levin 

It’s also interesting how inflation is playing out in domestic politics across the globe. It’s…

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh, yeah. Oh yea. And look, a lesser version of it, at a much much lesser version of it is happening, you know, yeah, I mean, it’s it’s it’s it’s, it’s real, even though you know, they’re getting to where they want to be. The Fed is. Which actually thank you for the segue gets me to my second point, which is a quick little blip from Bloomberg again, the headline is Goldman as in “Goldman Sachs pencils in first Fed rate cut for the second quarter of 2024.” So the second quarter, April, May and June of next year. That’s assuming you know one more rate hike this year they meet again in September this year. And then they’re going to start cutting Goldman Sachs says in April May and June of next year, I would just like to take the under on that one, because as Raphael Bostic said on Marketplace and as I have named dropped a number of times on the air and I think also on this podcast, Bostic says, “We are now at the hard part.’ Right inflation is at 3%, we want to get to 2 and the unemployment rate is still at three and a half percent but now comes the hard part is now is when the pain is going to start and people are going to say you cannot keep raising rates or you can’t keep rates where they are with inflation where it is. So we shall see what happens. But I’m going to take the under on Goldman, not to, you know, impugn any of those folks who work there and are making those those predictions forecasts.

Matt Levin 

I’m sorry, just just to be clear, the under is that you think the Fed rate cut will come after? Late on?

Kai Ryssdal 

Yes let me be clear, I think it will come later on in 2024. I would say toward the end. I just think, I think honestly, the Fed has sort of been so data dependent, they have been so emphatic in in saying we’re going to wait to see what the data says that it’s going to be very tough for them to climb down from that until inflation really actually gets to 2%. And by climb down from that, that means lowering interest rates. So I think it’s going to be longer than Goldman thinks it’s going to be.

Matt Levin 

I have a question. I’ve been dying to ask you Kai. All right, are you’re ready for this? Do you think the Fed has been more lucky or good here? Oh, sorry, starting starting with inflation rising in 2021.

Kai Ryssdal 

Right. So so the Fed blew it early on. And Jay Powell will tell you that. Last time I interviewed him I actually said, “did you blow it in saying it’s all going to be transitory, transitory rather?” And he without saying yes, said yes. He said it would have been better if we hadn’t said it was going to be transitory. That said, they have now somewhat skillfully negotiated really high inflation brought it down to two thirds of where it was a year ago. Right, with 475 basis point increases in a row in the middle of the last 12 months. And now I think the challenge is, what are they going to do? Are they going to let inflation keep coming down here. So here’s a great statistic, in the last 90 days over the last three months, inflation is running at 1.9%, which is below where the Fed wants it to be. So they blew it in the beginning. They did what they had to do in the middle. And now the question is, what are they going to do? And if they keep raising more than one more time this year, I think you’re gonna see a lot of people start yelling and screaming about the labor market and rightly so. Because, you know, if you keep it to tighten, the economy slows down. People are gonna lose their jobs. But right now the Fed looks to have and look, do not quote me on this. I’m not an economist, I just play one on the radio. But for now, the Fed looks to have negotiated the beginnings of a soft landing for which they deserve some credit.

Matt Levin 

I think if you like truth serum, Jay Powell, I don’t think there was a world where they thought they could get inflation this low with the labor market still being this great.

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh no, for sure. No, no, I know it. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Matt Levin 

I do think a decent amount of this is just things just kind of worked out. Well. It’s pretty incredible. When you think about it.

Kai Ryssdal 

I think you’re I think you’re right. Jayk, hit that thing. And we shall move on. Alright, I like yours. Go ahead. It’s a cool story.

Matt Levin 

Okay, you’ve probably seen at this point, some of the visuals that are coming out of Maui and the horrific wildfires that ravaged it. It’s, it’s horrific. I don’t know what other word to use. But what what’s actually a little striking is, I remember when we first saw some of the helicopter images or drone images, whatever they were, or whatever they were over Lahaina, which is where the brunt of the damage took place. There was like a little green ball. And I was I remember seeing it and being like, what what’s that amid just like absolute, you know, burned out shells of buildings and cars and all the rest. And it turns out that green ball is a 150-year-old banyan tree that has historical and cultural relevance for the history of Maui. It’s 60 feet tall. It’s also insanely wide. It’s a quarter of a mile wide, which is a quarter mile circumference, excuse me. Kind of a centerpiece, I believe by close to where City Hall was. People were fearing that that tree was dead. The tree is not dead. The governor of Hawaii said today that the tree is still alive and they have arborists that are working to kind of resuscitate it. Obviously, you know this, this pales in comparison to the sheer human damage that has happened. But still something of a silver lining, right? Just a little glimmer of hope that’s kind of symbolized by this tree. So that’s my make me smile.

Kai Ryssdal 

I think that’s totally legit. And that tree is images of it. I mean, I haven’t actually seen it in real life, but it’s an incredible thing if that somehow survives, we will take that as a win in this very, very, very grim story. Mine is somewhat related in that it’s about climate change, which I think, you know, everybody will acknowledge is at the root of what’s going on in Maui, and so many other natural disasters. And, and, and temperatures and all that stuff this summer, a judge in Montana, has ruled in favor of a bunch of young environmental activists who sued the government of the state of Montana, in saying that you are depriving us of our right to a clean and healthful environment. And a judge today said, You’re absolutely right. You are absolutely right. The government is doing a wrong thing. Climate change is real. And government, you have to fix it. I mean, obviously, this will be appealed, and all sorts of other things will happen. But this is a very big deal that a judge now has basically said, You know what? You got to fix it. You got to fix it. So yeah, yeah. Yeah, it’s good.

Matt Levin 

It’s good in Montana, of all places.

Kai Ryssdal 

I know. I know. Right? Well, so here’s the thing about Montana. And I know this just because I’ve done some work up there, right. Their, not their entire economy, but a huge part of their economy is extractive, right. We’ve got precious metals, they’ve got fossil fuels in the ground. And so it’s kind of interesting that these kids are like, no, no, no, you got to take care of us. You got to take care of the planet. So there you go.

Matt Levin 

Yeah, also one of the most beautiful places.

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh it’s gorgeous. It is is fabulous up there, the Big Sky thing is real. Okay, so we are done for today. Tomorrow, nothing from us. That is to say myself and Matt or whoever else is going to be subbing in for the next couple of weeks while Kimberly is off track in the Himalayas. We are going to do a story from Marketplace Tech, we’re going to put a special from them in the feed it’s about AI and how it might transform the workplace. We’ve been talking so much about it just on this pod today, but also on our various programs. And look, the deal is that the future might already be here. So Marketplace Tech is going to talk about that. Give a listen. Let us know what you think. 508-U-B-SMART is how you get us on the phone, makemesmart@marketplace.org is how you get us otherwise and we will be back in your feed regular wise on Wednesday.

Matt Levin 

There it is. There’s my cue. Alright, make me smart is produced by Courtney Bergsieker. Today’s program was engineered by Jayk Cherry, Ellen Rolfes writes our newsletter, our intern is Niloufar Shahbandi.

Kai Ryssdal 

Marissa Cabrera is our senior producer. Bridgette Bodnar is the director of podcast, Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital and on demand. I will die on that hill. There we go, thanks Matt.

Matt Levin

Yeah. Thanks Kai.