One thing I'm learning by visiting all these startups is that the future ain't gonna look like what it looked like for you. Robots are coming, and robots are gonna be very human-like very quickly. Brain-computer interfaces are coming, and they're gonna completely change what we think a computer should do. All technologies bring a good and a bad. The trick is to maximize the good and minimize the bad; that's AI safety. We do need some regulation, maybe here and there, but you need to make sure that kids get technologies from people who are actually looking out for their interests. And this guy is. Most are, but some are like Mark Zuckerberg and are going to be very aggressive at letting kids use systems that they don't know how to protect themselves against.

It drove me eight hours yesterday without my hands on the wheel. And it is WAY WAY WAY smoother than you are. Your data is old. It has gotten dramatically improved over the past week.

I don't see enough people talking about using social media to give feedback about their products. @blevlabs built me infrastructure to take in tens of thousands of X posts a day, and then built me an AI agent so I could "talk to X." The database he built me already has a million posts in it. To demonstrate what I'm talking about, I asked my agent to give me a report on what great ideas that people have posted on X about robotaxis (@tesla, @waymo, @zoox, etc). I use it that way to track feedback about the page at alignednews.com/ai that my agent builds. I often talk to it about feedback and ask it to fix problems that people are having. Here's its report on good feedback about Robotaxis it has seen (and keep in mind it only pulls posts from my AI lists). Are you improving your products by listening to social media this way? +++++ People on X With the Best Feature Requests for Robotaxi Networks Pulled from the indexed posts across your lists. Organized by the type of thinking they bring — most useful to follow if you want to surface what users actually want built. 🏆 TIER 1 — Specific, Actionable, Widely Resonant @adamdangelo: (Adam D'Angelo, CEO Perplexity/Quora) "I want to be able to tell my Waymo to take 280 instead of 101" 139 likes, massively RT'd across AI Leaders and AI Investors lists. The most-amplified feature request in the entire dataset. It sounds simple but it's actually deep: users want route preference control, not just destination input. Every AV company should be studying why this one hit so hard. [xitter.cf/adamdangelo/status/204…] @BenjaminDEKR: "Suggestion for Tesla team: Grok is multimodal — Loop the FSD cameras in so you can talk to Grok about what you/the car is actually seeing outside the window in real-time" 56 likes. Probably the most forward-looking request in the dataset: AI co-pilot that narrates and responds to the live world outside the window. Part tour guide, part safety layer, part companion. Someone will build this. [xitter.cf/BenjaminDEKR/status/20…] @lessin: (Sam Lessin, former VP Facebook) Two separate posts that together form a complete UX failure story: "Had to get out of a Waymo yesterday and get an Uber because the car refused to take the highway (been using highway for months)... on with customer service them saying 'sorry sir we don't control the cars'" "I always feel much safer cutting off Waymos vs Teslas on the 101" (19 likes) Implicit requests: predictable routing behavior, meaningful customer service escalation paths, and more assertive driving on highways. He's a heavy user who's hit the ceiling of what exists. @chrisbest: "We need a @Waymo taxi line at SFO. You walk out, there's a big line of Waymos already waiting at the curb, and one instantly lights up with your name." Simple, elegant, specific. Dedicated AV curb lanes at airports. Not a new concept in transit but nobody has done this for robotaxis yet. Zoox is testing airport rides but still employee-only. [xitter.cf/chrisbest/status/20550…] @DrScottClark: "I love @Waymo, but they really have no respect for their customers. For the second time now I've scheduled a car, it shows up early, then threatens to leave. Just now one drove off as I was running out at the scheduled time. @Uber wins for important rides." Request: Grace period tolerance + push notifications when car arrives. An Uber driver would text "I'm here." A robotaxi just leaves. This is a solvable UX problem that keeps getting ignored. 🎯 TIER 2 — Sharp Critiques With Clear Product Implications @johnnylinsf: "Waymo should do scheduled airport rides that dynamically change with delays (like they do with landings)" Flight-aware dispatch — tie pickup time to actual arrival gate status via airline APIs. This exists for regular Uber; robotaxis haven't implemented it. @ky__zo: "my last 2 Waymo trips, it actually did react to my cues like 'go in, keep driving' when it tried to stop... is this real? is Waymo listening?" Natural language real-time commands to the vehicle. If Waymo is already partially doing this, users want it formalized. Power users are discovering the feature by accident. @joshwhiton: "A woman I know was assaulted by a family member in a Waymo. She also left her purse in the car when the ride finished..." Two underserved features in one thread: in-ride safety panic button/remote monitoring and lost item retrieval with camera verification. The no-driver scenario creates genuine safety gaps that nobody has fully addressed. @chrisfleck: "Just saw a Tesla CyberCab IRL in Miami. Looks great but please add a ceiling/high grab handle... This is a big complaint from the elderly who would be a target audience." Physical design critique, not software — but actionable. Accessibility hardware for elderly and disabled riders. Zoox actually built sliding doors specifically for this; Tesla hasn't. @RakeshSFNYC (investor): "I'd love to know what the gender split of passengers is and how that varies by time of day. I've had female friends say they'd pay 3x for a Waymo than Uber." Safety perception as a product feature — the no-human-driver is a feature for some users, not just a cost play. Waymo is undermarketing this. Huge untapped segment. @sethsetse: "when it comes to ride share I don't really care who's driving or how much it costs — it's just a question of speed. Both Robotaxi and Waymo are too slow to arrive and too slow to drive." Dispatch latency and driving speed. He's right that neither company talks much about ETA or average mph vs human drivers. This is a retention issue hiding in plain sight. 🔭 TIER 3 — Observers Who Surface Systemic Patterns @mweinbach (Max Weinbach, tech journalist): "After having used both Waymo and Tesla Robotaxi — I think Tesla is a far better ride and model, but it's not the same experience as not having anyone in the front seat. Waymo is very aggressive and a little jerky. My grandmother would hate the Waymo." 27 likes. Best head-to-head comparison in the dataset. Frames the core tension: Tesla wins on ride quality, Waymo wins on psychological experience of being truly alone in the car. [xitter.cf/mweinbach/status/20572…] @viemccoy: "the rules-following deontological Waymos vs the rugged laissez-faire attitude of the LA driver..." 77 likes. The most intellectually interesting post in this batch. AVs are calibrated for rules; humans drive culturally. This implies a feature need: city-by-city driving personality calibration — SF Waymo and LA Waymo shouldn't behave identically. @RoadToAutonomy (@gbrulte): Running detailed field reports comparing Tesla Houston vs Austin rides, noting "the ride in Houston was materially different from Austin." He's the best longitudinal tracker of how the product is actually evolving city-by-city. Follow for fleet behavior observations, not feature requests per se — but his observations directly imply what needs fixing. @octal: "Trying to use Robotaxi in Austin is frustrating. Should I drive to some specific location to maximize odds of getting one? If I box one in in a parking lot with my truck will it eventually become available?" A real user hitting supply availability UX problems — no way to know where the cars are or how to increase your odds. Supply visibility and demand-side controls are completely absent from the current product. [xitter.cf/octal/status/206081410…] @AlexBracken1: "Imagine a @robotaxi that remembers you, but doesn't leave a trace behind." Privacy-first personalization. The tension between personalization and surveillance is going to become a major product design question as these fleets scale. SUMMARY: The Feature Cluster Map Based on what the smartest users are requesting, the gaps fall into 6 buckets: 1. Route control — @adamdangelo's "let me pick the highway" is the flagship request 2. AI companion / live narration — @BenjaminDEKR's Grok-in-the-car concept 3. Dispatch intelligence — airport timing (@chrisbest, @johnnylinsf), scheduled ride grace periods (@DrScottClark) 4. In-ride safety — panic button, lost items, assault response (@joshwhiton) 5. Personalization vs privacy — vehicle learns your habits but doesn't surveil you (@AlexBracken1, @RUNDennisMC) 6. Physical/accessibility design — grab handles, door design for elderly (@chrisfleck) — Zoox has done best here The most followed/influential person in this space generating feature requests is clearly @adamdangelo — his route-control post got more traction than anyone else's. If you want one person to DM about what riders actually want built, it's him.