NB: I didn't win the prize for this idea.
0.
Background and Origin
As
a recent transplant to Austin, I remain amazed at the proliferation of AVs. It
is difficult, except on airport runs, to find rideshares driven by humans and,
at any given intersection, up to half the vehicles in view are AVs, many of
which are empty. That prompted me to think about ways to keep both drivers and
AVs more fully employed.
1. Title and The Idea In One Sentence
Helping
Hand
Thanks
to the rise of AVs and inexpensive service apps, Helping Hand can keep drivers
employed meeting numerous human needs, in addition to rides, with a single
integrated service app.
2. Executive Summary – The Essence of the Idea
People
want to move from A to B, a service that AVs can now often provide, freeing up
drivers to earn by meeting other human needs requiring physical presence
that AI-enabled robots (AI bots) cannot yet do.
Helping
Hand keeps drivers in vehicles to provide services like driving (when the AVs
cannot due to connectivity issues, inclement weather, or emergency situations
when rules need to be broken), security (of the AV and for passengers),
delivery (door-to-door), niche personal services (childcare, cooking, cleaning,
basic friendship, maintenance, or translation services, tutoring), and
community services (community watch, first responder assistance, legal aid,
witness).
3.
Why
This Is a Good Idea for Workers
Helping
Hand could materially help drivers by giving them multiple, flexible
opportunities to earn. Nobody is born a rideshare driver. Like everyone else, rideshare
drivers possess multiple interests and talents that go undeveloped when their time
is spent driving, which requires their 100 percent attention. Finding reliable
customers to provide other services is also time-consuming.
Helping
Hand reduces both costs by freeing drivers from actual driving most of the
time, by matching them with people in need of their other skills and by acting
as an intermediary so that both parties remain safe and “get paid or get aid.”
As
the population ages and de-skilling continues, and as people increasingly live
alone or with strangers, the need for a helping hand (hence Helping Hand) has
grown. That help may be needed immediately and be something any adult human can
do but something that AI bots cannot currently do, like plunging a clogged
sink, babysitting for an hour, or delivering food quickly.[*] Or it might entail a
higher skill level, like tutoring sixth grade math, but be needed only
intermittently, like when the regular tutor cancels.
Helping
Hand would vet their drivers on their driving skills but also whatever other
skilled services the driver wishes to offer. Maybe one can play bridge or
euchre to make a foursome while another can offer violin lessons or round out a
focus group. Maybe some can do all that plus paint the exterior of a house or
detail an automobile, AV or otherwise.
Local
governments might also tap drivers whenever they need someone to direct
traffic, or to help first responders pass out blankets and water after an
apartment fire, or to witness the police reading an accused his Miranda rights
where bodycams remain unreliable.
For
some relatively more complex tasks that Helping Hand has not certified the
driver in, the driver can be sent instructional videos to review while en route
to the call.
Helping
Hand will prove most helpful to drivers who are flexible workers and quick
learners or with existing skills that are most in-demand and least able to be
done by AI bots.
4.
How
Implementation Would Work
Helping
Hand would need a corporate charter, applicable licenses, and startup funds. It
would need to contract with existing AV ride services, delivery apps and work
service apps, and with local public service providers like police and fire
departments. Those contracts should be voluntary and entered only when the
marginal benefit of the services provided exceeds the marginal cost. A fire
department, for example, might willingly pay $20/hr. for on-call, unskilled
help at fire scenes in lieu of tying up one or more higher paid, higher skilled
workers. A police department might pay $10/hr. for community watch services in
high crime neighborhoods and so forth. Insurers might pay a flat fee for a driver
to arrive and take pictures of a fender bender or other claim event. Ditto
newspapers that want to ensure that pictures being sent in by citizen
journalists are legitimate and not AI-generated.
Most
importantly, Helping Hand would need an app that would coordinate service calls
between all those entities, matching the appropriate drivers to specific needs,
and prioritizing calls per contract specifications. Those are merely
engineering problems that AI can presumably overcome.
a.
Financing
– if Helping Hand is a nonprofit, it needs to fundraise through grants. If it
is a commercial venture, perhaps an employee-owned for-profit corporation, it
needs VC backing. Parties will contract only if marginal benefits exceed costs,
so it is at least budget neutral.
b.
Complementary
policies – minimum wage, occupational licensing, and scope of practice laws
will need to be relaxed or jettisoned so that drivers are not subject to
onerous fees or education requirements. Drivers may be in the car but providing
no services or only low-paid incidental services (community watch, physical
protection of the AV) during parts of their shifts. Likewise, they may be asked
to perform services currently legally provided only by licensed professionals.
(In some jurisdictions, even cutting gum out of a child’s hair for pay would
constitute illegal practice of hairdressing.)
5.
Concerns, Obstacles, and Risks
If
run as a nonprofit enterprise, Helping Hand might prove too little, too late in
terms of protecting drivers from AV proliferation. If it is run as a commercial
enterprise and is not employee-owned, it might simply prove an intermediary in
the exploitation of drivers.
If
a nonprofit, inaction may prove its biggest foe. If it is successful, either as
a nonprofit or a for-profit, competitors may arise and profit by reducing
driver remuneration.
6.
Additional Details
a.
Political
and Coalition Dynamics
Most
opposition would come from people seeking more radical policies, like a UBI, or
more reactionary ones designed to slow the adoption of AVs.
b. Legal Considerations
In
addition to minimum wage and licensing laws, insurance will be a major
consideration. When they drive at all, drivers will be driving vehicles owned
by AV companies, not their own vehicles. Helping Hand would presumably insure
customers against any damages that drivers may cause rendering other services
and also insure drivers against any damages that customers may inflict on them.
- Precedents & Analogues
Precedents
and analogues abound. The key novelty is putting service providers into
vehicles that would be in motion anyway and giving customers a one-stop service
solution from which to order a ride, a pizza, or someone to hold a ladder while
the homeowner cleans the gutters on his house.
7. Key
Open Questions
What
percentage of current drivers will relish the opportunity to diversify income
streams while doing basic, though highly variegated, work?
What
percentage of government bureaucracies will be able to see the value in
summoning extra unskilled aid on demand?
Will
wealthy individuals or NGOs use Helping Hand to bolster protests, marches, and
so forth? And, if so, how will governments and the public react?
[*] AV delivery services are currently
being tested in Austin but the little boxes, essentially just heater-coolers on
wheels, are clearly inadequate outside of downtown areas in good weather.
Thieves are already cracking them for their delicious contents.
