{"id":1593,"date":"2026-09-03T15:45:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T15:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/09\/03\/human-safety-drivers-in-uber-robotaxis-could-lose-skills-if-all-they-do-is-observe\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T15:45:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T15:45:26","slug":"human-safety-drivers-in-uber-robotaxis-could-lose-skills-if-all-they-do-is-observe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/09\/03\/human-safety-drivers-in-uber-robotaxis-could-lose-skills-if-all-they-do-is-observe\/","title":{"rendered":"Human \u2018safety drivers\u2019 in Uber robotaxis could lose skills if all they do is observe"},"content":{"rendered":"
A safety driver may become less of an operator and more of a critical supervisor.<\/span> Scharfsinn \/ Shutterstock<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Imagine getting into a London taxi. Someone is sitting in the driver\u2019s seat, but the car is driving itself. If the autonomous system gets into difficulty, they must recognise what is happening, decide whether to intervene and, within seconds, potentially take control. <\/p>\n

This is no longer hypothetical. Uber and the British autonomous driving company, Wayve, have been granted licences to operate self-driving<\/a> taxis in London with human safety drivers seated inside, with more than 100,000 people having joined a waiting list for the service. Uber launched its service<\/a>, with 15 autonomous vehicles, on September 3.<\/p>\n

Much of the debate thus far has focused on whether robotaxis will eventually replace human drivers. But there is another important question: what happens to human skill when our job changes from doing something to watching a machine do it?<\/p>\n

Driving involves reading the road, anticipating others\u2019 behaviour, judging risk and
\nresponding to unexpected situations. Autonomous vehicles transfer much of this
\nwork to software, but humans don\u2019t necessarily become unskilled; their expertise
\nchanges. <\/p>\n

They become less of an operator and more of a critical supervisor. There
\nis, however, a problem with this arrangement, one that was identified long before
\ntoday\u2019s enthusiasm for AI.<\/p>\n

In 1983, Lisanne Bainbridge published an influential paper, Ironies of Automation<\/a>, noting that automation tends to leave humans with the tasks machines find most difficult, namely, monitoring complex systems and dealing with unusual situations.<\/p>\n

The irony is that automating routine work can leave people with fewer opportunities
\nto practise the skills they need when something goes wrong. Applied to robotaxis, this paradox is striking: the better the autonomous system becomes at driving, the less its human supervisor needs to drive. <\/p>\n

However, the less that person drives, the fewer opportunities they have to practise the skills they may suddenly need when the system encounters something it cannot handle.<\/p>\n

Meaningful oversight<\/h2>\n

There are signs of a similar problem elsewhere. For example, a 2025 study of clinicians<\/a> using AI-assisted colonoscopy found that after routinely working with AI, their ability to detect precancerous growths when working without the technology declined, falling from 28.4% before regular exposure to AI to 22.4% afterwards. <\/p>\n

This does not mean that AI makes doctors worse, nor that autonomous vehicles will
\ninevitably make people poor drivers. The significant distinction is between the
\nperformance of the human-machine system and the capabilities retained by the
\nhuman within it. <\/p>\n

\n \"Self-driving
\n A number of cities around the world have seen trials of self-driving cars.<\/span>
\n Caito \/ Shutterstock<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A system can improve while the human supervisor becomes less practised. We hear about keeping a \u201chuman in the loop\u201d in medicine, education, law and workplaces increasingly reliant on machine-generated analysis. However, having a human present is not the same thing as having meaningful human oversight. <\/p>\n

For that, the person needs enough expertise to recognise when the machine is wrong,
\nenough confidence to challenge, and enough authority to intervene.<\/p>\n

A temporary job?<\/h2>\n

Robotaxis already operate in the US, China and the Middle East, sometimes without
\na supervisor. This raises an uncomfortable question about London\u2019s safety drivers:
\ndo they represent a new kind of skilled occupation (expertise in supervising
\nautonomous systems) or are they temporary workers, required until the technology is
\nconsidered reliable enough to work alone?<\/p>\n

There may, in other words, be two kinds of displacement happening. Eventually, the
\ntaxi driver may be displaced by the machine, but before that happens, driving itself becomes displaced by supervising. And that transformation is likely to reach far beyond transport.<\/p>\n

The government had anticipated commercial trials beginning this year, but regulatory and technical hurdles have delayed the rollout. Transport for London<\/a> has not published the guidance operators will need and no vehicles have thus far completed the approval process required for fully driverless passenger services.<\/p>\n

The delay has been welcomed by some campaigners who have raised concerns
\nranging from employment and road safety, to privacy and the environmental costs
\nassociated with data intensive technologies. However, the postponement should not
\nbe read as evidence that autonomous vehicles have failed or that they are inherently unsafe. <\/p>\n

Indeed, it highlights something more fascinating \u2013 that technological capability, regulation and social preparedness do not necessarily develop at the same speed.<\/p>\n

Before fully autonomous vehicles can become ordinary features of London\u2019s streets,
\nregulators must confront questions that are partly technical but also ethical; such as, who supervises an autonomous system? Who is responsible when something goes
\nwrong? <\/p>\n

And at what point are we prepared to decide that the human supervisor is no
\nlonger needed? London\u2019s delayed experiment is therefore testing a relationship with technology that is becoming increasingly familiar: machines performing while humans watch, judge and remain responsible. <\/p>\n

As such, the challenge is no longer about keeping a \u201chuman in the loop\u201d, but ensuring that when we do, humans retain the skills, judgment and agency that make their presence meaningful.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Gareth Evans-Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A safety driver may become less of an operator and more of a critical supervisor. Scharfsinn \/ Shutterstock Imagine getting into a London taxi. Someone is sitting in the driver\u2019s seat, but the car is driving itself. If the autonomous system gets into difficulty, they must recognise what is happening, decide whether to intervene and, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1593\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}