Many of us want to always have something to do: work. We have to be as useful as possible to society, and this goal helps us psychologically, whether we realize it or not.

*The story below is true.

It was necessary to get to a certain place quickly. After several Uber drivers declined the ride (the app kept redirecting me from one to another), one driver finally accepted.

He was just under 50 and in a mood to talk. The story is that he accepts all races, works for his own company, because he also has other commercial activities.

“I don’t do Uber for the money, I retired a year or so ago,” he tells me, claiming he has a big enough pension not to worry.

I concluded that he is a special pensioner.

He continued: “I’ve seen the world, I’ve traveled a lot since I retired.”

In the last few months, he felt that he was no longer useful. It started to take a toll on him psychologically and he said he needed to do something to occupy his time and have a purpose. He wanted to be around people, so he chose to be an Uber driver.

“Work is therapeutic for me. It relaxes me and I learn something,” he said.

Lately I’ve met a few retirees, not necessarily special retirees, who do this to keep themselves occupied, to feel useful.

What will such people do if we have driverless cars in the near future? They will have to look for other activities.

Are driverless cars safer? The teacher who tested says yes

“In the future, we will no longer have drivers, but we will have the opportunity to drive a robot taxi. You order it from your smartphone and the taxi arrives without anyone inside. You get in and he takes you where you want to go. It is still in the experimental phase. You feel safe,” said Professor Nikolaus Franke (Scientific Director of the MBA Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Head of the Institute of Entrepreneurship and Innovation) at the WU Executive Academy.

He noted that he used the service.

According to forecasts, the cost of taxis will be a tenth of the current price of taxis, so they will revolutionize the market.

“There aren’t many taxis in San Francisco (the market is busy with apps like Uber and Lyft not). I think there are 30-40 more taxis, and they are at the airport,” he explained.

According to him, driver cars as we know them are safer than any human driver.

• “They respond faster and the future is bright if we use them.”

“Think of a city where all the cars are driverless. What will we give up? Parking lots are no longer needed. There will be no more traffic jams because they will be able to synchronize,” he added.

The debate we are currently having is about autonomous cars: how to program them to make decisions in the event of potential accidents.

“How often in your life have you made such decisions? It’s extreme, it could happen, but it’s not the center of autonomous driving. It is a European flaw that all possible problems are discussed first, and then opportunities,” explained the professor.

Of course, he says both are important: “Don’t get me wrong. We must consider ethics, but not only that. The US is much more pragmatic about it.”

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