Robotaxis arise from a clear industrial logic. Ride-hailing firms depend on labor, and labor is costly. Automation removes that cost. The driver is the largest recurring expense in each trip. To strip it out is to move closer to profit. For technology suppliers, fleets of robotaxis offer more than revenue.

Advanced artificial intelligence forces a clear institutional choice. For two centuries, wages tied survival to employment and made the job the main gateway into the economy and society. That relation is weakening.

The Guardian recently ran a feature titled “Can AIs suffer? Big tech and users grapple with one of the most unsettling questions of our times” (August 26, 2025). Reading it, one could mistake the story for a South Park script.

Spectacle has always revealed more than it entertains. The stadium, the parade ground, the ceremony — these are not only spaces of collective attention, but stages on which societies rehearse their futures.