I recently moved to Austin and without a car it is impossible to avoid using Uber.
I had never been in a self-driving car before so when I was setting up Uber I selected the "give me autonomous vehicles" option.
The first day I landed I wanted to go check out Butler park and the pitch & putt beside it. I ordered an Uber and got a normal driver.
I told the driver I was new to Austin and he started giving me the "local" food spots. Best tacos, best BBQ, best breakfast etc.
He gave me a couple other tips on things to do + advised on how to avoid food poisoning from a food truck (look for the ones with a water supply).
He also took a slightly different route than Uber recommended and got me there a few minutes early. All in all a very pleasant and useful trip.
The next day I booked the same Uber trip to go for a group hike. This time I got a Waymo, which I was excited about.
I get in and we take off. Obviously this time there are no food recommendations, or any conversation at all for that matter.
The Waymo for some reason has to take a route that more than doubles the journey time. I had left planning to arrive 10 minutes early, I was now about to be 10 minutes late.
About halfway through the journey I also start feeling car sick, and realise the Waymo drives like a learner driver. There is very little smoothness, it brakes and accelerates very aggressively.
The next couple weeks as I continued getting Ubers I got to practice my Spanish, meet people from a tonne of different countries and continued to rack up the restaurant recommendations.
Upon getting a 2nd Waymo which again made me feel car sick, took way longer than a human and dropped me not quite where I wanted, I turned off the autonomous vehicle option.
Turns out I prefer the variety and conversation of humans and their different vehicles vs. the same car every time with no interesting interactions and a high likelihood of taking longer.