What Happens When AI Replaces a Job You Actually Like?
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Lyft drivers becoming Waymo detailers might be the most dystopian thing I’ve read about artificial intelligence replacing workers.
Not because cleaning cars is beneath anyone. I clean my own car all the time. I’ve spent years maintaining a vehicle while driving for Uber. The problem is what the new job represents.
I chose rideshare driving because I like the flexibility, freedom, movement, and randomness of it. I like being out in the world. I like deciding when I work. I like meeting people I would never otherwise meet. I like being able to wake up one morning and decide that instead of driving, I’m going to make a video. Then, later that night, I can turn the app on and go for a drive. That freedom has real value to me.
Then an autonomous car comes along and replaces the driver.
And what is the job waiting on the other side?
Cleaning the autonomous car.
Business Insider recently reported on Lyft’s Waymo operation in Nashville. The facility employs around 70 people, with roughly half of them former Lyft drivers. Their jobs include inspecting, charging, cleaning, and vacuuming cars, checking tire pressure, flagging problems, and preparing them to go back out on the road. One executive put it this way: autonomous vehicles still cannot clean, charge, or repair themselves.
To be fair, drivers in the article liked the job. They like the steady hours, coworkers, and the possibility of building a career around autonomous vehicles. I get it. If you’re a gig worker, you know what it’s like to live ride to ride never knowing what you’re going to make.
But I would hate it.
Even if it paid more.
That is what gets lost in most conversations about automation. We talk about jobs almost entirely in terms of income. If a machine replaces a $25-an-hour job and another $25-an-hour job appears, we act as though the problem has been solved.
But work is not just how we make money.
Work is how we spend a huge portion of our lives.
I could make more money doing other things. I could go back into accounting. I could find a traditional job. I chose not to. I chose rideshare driving because the work structure fits the kind of life I want. I can choose the city I drive in. I can choose the car. I can choose which trips I take. I can stop when I want. Nobody has to approve my day off.
Now imagine the alternative.
The Waymo gets to go out into the city. It gets the road. It gets the passengers. It gets the movement and the randomness.
I get the vacuum.
I can picture some supervisor walking out into the shop telling everybody that the average turnaround time is five minutes and thirty-eight seconds. Still, corporate needs it down to five minutes and thirty seconds. Eight seconds. Let’s go. Hit the number this quarter, and maybe there is a pizza party.
That is not a criticism of the people who want that job. It is a recognition that the job is almost the exact opposite of the one I chose.
That is what makes the whole thing feel so ugly to me.
Artificial intelligence is often sold to us as something that will eliminate repetitive work so humans can spend more time doing meaningful things. But what happens when the machine eliminates the thing you found meaningful and leaves the repetitive work behind?
What if I liked the thing you automated?
Meaningful work does not have to be prestigious work. It does not have to be high-paying work. Meaningful work can be work that lets you live in a way that makes sense to you.
For me, that includes being out in the world and interacting with strangers.
That human side of driving matters more than people realize. As a rideshare driver, you learn how to read people. You learn when someone wants to talk and when they want to be left alone. You learn how to help someone confused, tired, drunk, nervous, or having a bad day. You learn customer service, sales, judgment, patience, and empathy.
You also learn how to work inside an algorithm.
Most workers have spent their careers working for human supervisors. Gig workers have spent years working within systems where algorithms decide which opportunities appear, how much they are paid, what incentives are offered, and what behavior the platform wants to encourage. Drivers learn when to accept, when to decline, when to move, when to switch apps, and when the algorithm is no longer serving their interests.
Those skills matter because I do not think the answer is pretending autonomous vehicles are not coming.
They are coming.
I do not know exactly when they will meaningfully affect every rideshare market. I do not know what my own future looks like. That uncertainty scares me.
But drivers can start preparing now.
The first step is getting your life in order. That means your spiritual life, your family, your health, and your money. Save something if you can. Reduce the things that leave you desperate. The more margin you create in your life, the more choices you have when something changes.
Then understand your value beyond driving.
Do an inventory of what you actually know how to do. You may understand spreadsheets. Maybe you are good with vehicles. Maybe you are excellent with people. Maybe you are good at sales. Maybe you know your city better than almost anyone. Maybe you have learned how to solve problems under pressure without somebody standing over your shoulder.
Develop those skills.
Especially the human ones.
The ability to have a real conversation, listen, empathize, persuade, reassure, teach, lead, and understand another person may become more valuable as machines become more capable. AI can imitate conversation. That is not the same thing as two human beings sitting across from one another and actually understanding each other.
And build something outside the gig.
It does not have to mean quitting Uber tomorrow. It could mean another app, another skill, a small business, a trade, a certification, an audience, consulting work, or some completely different source of income. Experiment while the app still works for you, rather than waiting until you are forced to experiment because it no longer does.
Most importantly, pay attention to the parts of your work you actually love.
If you love being around people, find other ways to build around people. If you love independence, build toward work that preserves independence. If you love solving problems, develop that skill beyond rideshare.
The goal is not necessarily to save rideshare driving forever. The goal is to make sure that when the driving changes, you still have options.
Waymo may eventually be able to replace the task of driving a passenger from Point A to Point B. That does not mean everything you learned while doing the job disappears with it.
So don’t wait until the app no longer needs you. Figure out now what survives when the driving does not.
