Your robotaxi ride to Lotus of Siam is gonna be weird

Okay so, robotaxis, huh? No steering wheel, just a fancy pod driving itself down the Strip or, God forbid, out to the 215 Beltway. Here's the deal, this Zoox and Uber partnership hitting Las Vegas this summer? It's another one of those things where the tech bros look at our city and see a giant beta test. First, they tried to make us cashless, now they want to take away the drivers. Look, I'm all for innovation, but real talk, navigating the downtown maze around Fremont Street or trying to get to a Raiders game at Allegiant Stadium when traffic is backed up to the Strat? That takes a human touch. These tourists are already tripping over their own feet trying to cross Las Vegas Boulevard; now we're gonna have them flagging down a car with nobody inside? It's gonna be a scene, that's for sure.

And what about the folks who actually *drive* for a living out here? The cabbies, the ride-share guys, the shuttle drivers who know every shortcut from McCarran to Summerlin. This town runs on service, and that includes getting people where they need to go, whether it's Roberto's for a carne asada burrito at 3 AM or a poker game at one of the Station Casinos. We're already seeing the water levels drop in Lake Mead every single day, building more and more without really thinking about what it means. Now we're adding self-driving cars to the mix, taking away jobs from the very people who make this city tick. It's just another layer of shiny new tech that feels more for the visitors than for the locals trying to make a living. Vegas on the wire — the house always has a story.

Ricky Garza-Ibarra

The crew on the Morning Wire dug into this one hard, catch it all mornings.live.