Humans are a resourceful bunch, and it didn't take long for the advent of hands-free driving with Tesla Autopilot to spark a new kind of ride-sharing phenomenon. Recently, The San Francisco Standard reported that several people claimed to have had sex in General Motors' now-defunct Cruise robotaxis. 'There’s no one to tell you, “You can’t do that.” It gets to the point where you’re more and more and more comfortable,' said one interviewee.

The interiors of vehicles have long been sexualized, from film and music to photography. Alexandros Rouchitsas, a human factors/UX researcher, pointed out that the removal of the social obligation to interact with a human driver in robotaxis could lead to a false sense of privacy. 'There’s no need to make small talk, and you won’t have to listen to someone’s terrible opinion,' he noted, highlighting how this could lead to riders assuming they have more privacy than they actually do.

A recent workshop, 'Love in Traffic,' brought together researchers from academia and industry to explore how design can mitigate such issues. As one man put it, 'You can see it in movies, you can see it in lyrics, you can see it in photography.' The interiors of vehicles have been sexualized and appropriated for sex since forever in popular culture, and this might be a sign of things to come.

A pair of teens who hired a Waymo for their drunken antics and then shot gel beads out the windows learned a hard lesson this summer. The cameras and ridership terms and conditions provide far less privacy than they might imagine in a robotaxi. As the tech industry races to perfect driverless cars, we might be setting the stage for some unexpected human interactions.