Google Paying Arizona Residents $20/Hr To Test Self-Driving Cars (mashable.com) 76
An anonymous reader writes from a report on Mashable: Google is paying Arizona residents $20 per hour to test its self-driving vehicles. The 'Self-Driving Vehicle Operator/Operations Associate' needs to have a clean driving record, no criminal history, a BS or a BA degree and the ability to type at least 40 words per minute, according to the job listing. The job involves driving 6-8 hours a day in a two person team, five days a week while monitoring the car's systems with "constant focus" and filling up daily reports. "[Test drivers] give our engineers feedback about how our cars are driving and interacting with others on the road, and can take control of the vehicle if needed," Brian Torcellini, head of operations for Google's Self-Driving Car testing program, told The Arizona Republic. The job listing comes about a month after Google announced it would expand its self-driving car testing program to Phoenix, Arizona. At that announcement, Google said it wants to test how autonomous vehicles behave in Phoenix's desert conditions and high temperatures.
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$20/hr is about 160% the median personal income in America.
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Exactly, thank you. Personal income is about half of household income, because the median household is about two people.
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Self digging out cars?
Of course a thermostat wired into the remote starter to keep the car from freezing when parked outside at night should be easy
Economic impact? (Score:2)
So, in other words, self driving cars will actually CREATE JOBS, at least in Arizona....
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I'm sure that unemployed holders of humanities or arts degrees will be quite happy.
My neighbor's daughter graduated last year from SJSU with a degree in communications. She is now working as a front desk clerk in a hotel for $12/hour. $20/hour is not a bad wage for someone with an otherwise worthless degree.
Google is not hiring BS/BA grads for any specific knowledge, but because having a degree indicates that you showed up and paid attention for 4 years, so you are also likely to show up for work everyday and do your job.
Re:$20 an hour for a BA/BS degree? (Score:5, Insightful)
Disclaimer: Ex taxi driver.
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Communications degree != all degrees.
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$20/hr is about $160% the median American personal income.
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Is that still true for college graduates?
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College graduates obviously have a higher median income than the general populace, and I don't have figures for that myself, but according to another poster in this thread $20/hr is around the median for them nationally, and above it in Arizona specifically.
Am I the only one (Score:5, Interesting)
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degree is the new high school diploma. It means you can read, write, play well with others and follow something to completion even if bits are boring.
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Moral panic? Hardly. When a social justice mob harasses somebody close to me until they are suicidal, there is a problem.
You social justice weenies will get what's coming to you sooner or later.
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You gotta better way to keep these cars from becoming getaway drivers?
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Not with the AI driving, all it needs is a red light or a stop sign and it will get caught.
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slightly horrified that they're asking for somebody with a degree, and for a $20/hr job no less...
That's the going rate for three adjunct professors.
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Well, $20/hour ($41k/year) is about the median income for a person with a Bachelor's Degree, and Arizona doesn't have the highest cost of living, so they are probably ahead of the game. Especially if their degree is in a lower paying major.
Plus, "ride in car and pay attention" doesn't sound like the highest skilled job. Given the safety record of the cars, it isn't that dangerous of a job, either.
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It actually seems like pretty fair pay to me as well. I doubt it will be driving the median wage for entry level positions any, but it seems like a smart strategy for booking miles.
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Well, $20/hour ($41k/year) is about the median income for a person with a Bachelor's Degree, and Arizona doesn't have the highest cost of living, so they are probably ahead of the game. Especially if their degree is in a lower paying major.
Plus, "ride in car and pay attention" doesn't sound like the highest skilled job. Given the safety record of the cars, it isn't that dangerous of a job, either.
They're not just babysitting the cars, it sounds like they want a bunch of daily reports and such.
I'm sure they're pretty basic reports, but if you want to make sure people are competent to carry out daily written assignments then requesting college degrees is a good filter.
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For a job many people would pay to be able to do, minus the report filling...
Only excellent drivers allowed in self-driving car (Score:2)
The job qualifications requirements for the two-person team to drive the self-driving car is because Google want to maintain their cars' excellent driving records.
Arbitration Clause (Score:3)
"First, you'll have to sign this waiver of our liability, because motherfucker, if it was a "self-driving car" we wouldn't need you to be our crash-test dummy.
If they really want to test their self-driving cars, they should hire unemployed "software engineers" to lay down in the road in front of a fleet of self-driving cars. That's the test that matters.
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If they really want to test their self-driving cars, they should hire unemployed "software engineers" to lay down in the road in front of a fleet of self-driving cars. That's the test that matters.
That test has already been passed.
Hundreds of little 2-seater Google self-driving cars can already be seen driving everywhere in Santa Clara and Mountain View.
Those cars look like little Disney rides [amazonaws.com] with hats.
And so far, they haven't run over any of the pedestrian software engineers crossing the streets, nor any of the numerous children who run in front of them for hugs because they think they're Disney characters [cartoonswallpapers.net].
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There are no pedestrians in Santa Clara or Mountain View. I'm serious.
And if there were and they were run over by a Google Car, they probably wouldn't be missed until they didn't show up for their hot yoga class on Thursday.
Re:Arbitration Clause (Score:4, Interesting)
There are no pedestrians in Santa Clara or Mountain View. I'm serious.
Clearly, you were not stuck in traffic yesterday during the two conventions and the game.
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I was behind a Google car going through this intersection [google.com] some months back around 6pm. The street view shows 13 people either crossing or waiting to cross; it's that busy most of the day, and even more around dinnertime. I can confirm that it did not hit anyone on the way through, though it was kinda slow and timid.
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... spoken like someone who has never driven down Charleston Rd. through the Google campus. Imagine streams of pedestrians flooding across the roads (mostly at traffic lights, but not always), brightly colored bicycles every twenty feet (both in the bike lane and not), etc. It's a self-driving-car safety testing dream.
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You just don't hear about the ones who get run over by Google Cars, because they're immediately replaced by clones with HB1 visas.
The most expensive Phoenix test... (Score:2, Offtopic)
To make this realistic, Google has to include a few vans in the test mix. Into each one approximately 135 'test drivers' will be crammed. These vans will be programmed to drive up and down the I-10/I-19 corridor between Phoenix, Tucson and well south until the extra weight bogging down their suspensions attracts the attention of a Department of Public Safety unit. A cheery high-speed police chase will ensue along the Interstates and through city streets until the van loses control and heads-on with some fam
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High speed? On a Google self driving car?
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Normally no, but this common Phoenix-area highway situation would make an ideal test of self-drive in high speed situations.
B.A./B.S. Degree (Score:4, Interesting)
Are these driver-less cars are so sophisticated that they require a college-educated person to sit behind the wheel? Or is this like a law firm requiring a college degree for a filing clerk position?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/business/college-degree-required-by-increasing-number-of-companies.html [nytimes.com]
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Also, I'd imagine there's a big difference in insurance costs between hiring college grads and high school grads. I mean, I've never shopped for commercial car insurance, so I can't be sure, but....
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"Are these driver-less cars are so sophisticated that they require a college-educated person to sit behind the wheel?"
Probably not. But, I guarantee that providing super accurate feedback according specific detailed guidelines, with high accuracy will require a person that has the ability to comprehend and apply the provided guidelines (without training). Not that that requires a college education, but it eliminates many that don't have that ability. Guaranteed, driving is going to be the least of the hires
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Or why beta isnâ(TM)t UTF-8 compliant.
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My apostrophe works just fine, perhaps it is because you are using some weird character?
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Potential crash-test dummies wanted (Score:2)
So basically Google is hiring potential crash-test dummies, or if you are optimistic, driver decoys to fool the police, for $20/hour? Because I can see them paying attention to what the car is doing the first half hour, and once you have confidence that it's not crashing, I'd be on reddit... hrm, I mean, slashdot for the rest of the day.
Job listing violates 1964 civil rights act (Score:2, Interesting)
Google better watch out our they will have lawsuits....their job listing lists no criminal history as a requirement which is illegal under the civil rights act of 1964 (enforced by the equal employment opportunity commission). Simple existence of a past criminal record is not sufficient to deny employment; it must be directly relevant to the job. EEOC has several guidelines to determine relevancy (basically 3 guidelines - severity, relation to job position, likelihood of recidivism [majority of crimes commi
You need a Degree just to test it? (Score:3)
What happens if you take it on a forest road? (Score:2)
For those of you who are familiar with the area, what happens if you try to take it up the 711 road from Lake Pleasant to Crown King?
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It drives down the road?
What is the concern that you are trying to imply?
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People break serious 4x4's on that road.
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If that is the case, can it really be called a road anymore? If it breaks 4x4s, it is likely a trail, and likely most cars wouldn't survive the road, self driving or not.