London cabbies not ready to hand over their keys to AI-powered, autonomous taxis
In a Nutshell
Traditional London black cab drivers spend years memorizing 25,000 streets and landmarks to pass "The Knowledge," a rigorous test that physically expands their brains and gives them an edge over GPS navigation. Autonomous taxi companies like Waymo and Wave are preparing to launch in London, claiming AI systems are safer and more efficient than human drivers, while cabbies argue their real-world intuition and ability to respond to unexpected situations cannot be replaced. The black cab industry has already shrunk from 25,000 to 16,000 drivers due to competition from ride-hailing apps, with cabbies betting that human drivers will remain essential despite the rise of robo-taxis.
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On ancient roads and medieval alleyways in London, a modern battle is brewing between traditional black cabs and AI-powered autonomous taxis. Tech companies promise these AI inventions, already operating in several American cities, are safer and smarter than human drivers. London's cabbies are not ready to hand over their keys. To get a license, cabbies prove their own kind of intelligence by studying often for years to pass a 161-year-old test called the Knowledge. There's nothing artificial about it. They must memorize 25,000 streets and thousands of landmarks and businesses and know the shortest routes between them all.
Black cabs are the oldest form of transport in the world, coming before buses and trains. They are icons of London. Tom Skolian has been driving one of London's famous black cabs for the past 34 years. He shared a story about a regular passenger with an Irish wolfhound that gives him a piece of paper showing where the dog lives. The dog jumps in the cab and is one of his best customers, never saying a word or complaining. Cabbies get passengers hailing them to take their kids to school who have never seen them before and may never see them again, demonstrating the trust people place in them.
The trust and confidence in cabbies dates back to 1865 when the Knowledge exam was first introduced to London's horse-drawn cabs. Cabbies face constant challenges from riders testing their knowledge, with passengers saying "Which way you going, mate? Google says this and Google says that." Cabbies claim you are never going to beat the Knowledge, stating their knowledge is better than what a Google map will tell you to go. One cabbie compared it to comparing a hot dog vendor to Gordon Ramsay.
At the Transport for London office, nervous aspiring cabbies dress up in their Sunday best to take a series of oral exams known as appearances. Candidates are quizzed on how to get between two random points. Examiners measure the distance, ensuring candidates are calling the shortest route. One candidate was told "Unfortunately, sir, I can't score you today" after failing a round. For those who do pass the Knowledge, this memorization has proven so challenging it can change the structure of their brains. A study from University College London found cab drivers' posterior hippocampi, the part of the brain linked to memory, got bigger throughout their careers.
Steven Fairbrass has been trying to pass the Knowledge for eight years. Anu Morjani has been trying for five years. They showed the official study guide known as the blue book, which contains points of interest that any paying customer would want to be taken to. There are 6,000 points listed including restaurants, public houses, The Last Judgment, the Law Society Hall, the London or Hotel, the Marquee, the Mon Library, and the National Gallery. Candidates must learn individual restaurants and public houses. If a restaurant goes out of business, it changes names and candidates learn the new name, which then comes on the list.
Autonomous vehicles haven't been approved to pick up passengers in London yet, but several companies are already trying out their cars. Wave, a British startup backed by Nvidia and Microsoft, hopes to be operational later this year, as does Whimo, owned by Google's parent company Alphabet. Tequidro Maakana is Whimo's co-CEO. She says putting more robo taxis on the roads can save lives by reducing the million traffic deaths worldwide each year. Whimo claims to be five times safer than a human driver based on their data. Whimo first began offering rides in a Phoenix suburb in 2020 and now millions of riders across 11 major US cities are being driven by Whimo each month.
Humans want to get in the car and send that last email they didn't get to send and check on the kid that's screaming, but they're trying to drive and do that. Robo taxis give passengers the chance to take care of all of those things and let the Whimo driver safely get them from point A to point B. Whimo calls its AI a driver, describing it as the most experienced driver in the world. The fleet travels over 2 million miles a week. Humans drive about 700,000 miles in a lifetime, so this is almost three lifetimes per week that their fleet is driving because it's been trained on every other ride Whimo has given. Whimo's AI has also driven billions of miles in simulation to train for rare scenarios like snow on the Golden Gate Bridge or an elephant stopping traffic.
In San Francisco, a trip was taken in one of Whimo's robo taxis with product manager Chris Lewick. After a few minutes, the ride felt strangely normal, like a very careful driver. The goal is to be blissfully boring. The car is outfitted with 29 cameras, 6 radars, 5 microphones, and 5 LiDAR sensors, which continuously pulse to measure distances, objects, and people as far as three football fields away. A screen shows riders what the car is seeing. The sensors make it super human compared to what a human would be able to do. Whimo says the data gathered from these sensors enables the AI to respond faster than a human.
A woman talking on her phone crossed right in front of the vehicle. The system has learned to react to subtle cues because that's what's necessary. Whimo's AI still makes rookie mistakes. In Los Angeles, a Whimo drove through an active police scene. There have also been incidents of robo taxis getting in the way of emergency responders and illegally passing stop school buses, leading to a software recall and a federal investigation.
Back in London, Whimo's robo taxis have been driving the streets to build a detailed 3D map to train its AI, a company standard before operating in a new area. Wave's CEO Alex Kendall explained that unlike Whimo, his artificial intelligence doesn't map out a city before driving in it. The AI learns like humans learn to drive, going through a few traffic lights and learning the concept of traffic lights. Wave trains its AI on millions of hours of experience driving all around the world. This means when it goes somewhere it's never seen before or never been mapped, it can understand what's in front of it and make decisions in real time. Wave's robo taxis are still in testing and not yet available to the public.
Alex Kendall took the crew to Westminster, a district in London home to some of the city's most historic landmarks, to show where he's been training his fleet since Wave's early days in 2019. A human has to sit in the driver's seat for safety until robo taxis are approved by the government. During a drive around a busy roundabout in front of Westminster and Parliament with lots of tourists and different vehicles, the AI handled a car crossing into their lane and a bike they had to wait for before making a lane change. Kendall believes the main advantage of an AI driver is that it can have the intelligence to deal with things that you may never expect on the roads.
Aspiring cabbie Steven Fairbrass didn't seem too concerned about autonomous vehicles. He believes the human brain will always be the strongest tool. He questioned how you can imagine trying to hail down a vehicle with no driver in it, standing in the rain trying to get home and that vehicle just drives straight past you because it hasn't got a sensor or a human brain or an eye to turn. He believes human beings and drivers will always be needed. Anu Morjani wasn't so sure, noting every profession is being affected by AI and not knowing what it's going to do in the near future, but it's always there on your mind when you're getting into a career.
Over the last decade London's black cab industry has seen a steep decline. The number of drivers has fallen from 25,000 to 16,000 today. Income has also declined as Uber and other ride hailing companies have been cutting into their business. Hundreds still sign up for the Knowledge each year. Steven Fairbrass's 20th attempt ended in failure. Anu Morjani's 41st try was successful, and he passed. Just this week after 5 years of trying, Morjani finally completed the Knowledge and will now earn his license.
Some people might wonder why spend years studying for this exam when you could be an Uber driver much faster. Driving around in one of the famous cabs means hundreds of years of world history. It means a lot to people of London. It's like London without a queen. You can't have a London without a black cab.
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