iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jens von Bergmann @jensvb.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

My original post that you replied to was about safety. If you don’t care about safety, but about economics, we’re having a different conversation. Dangerous roads are a significant contributor to mortality in North America. I’d rather solve that ASAP instead of wait for an economic revolution.

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Reposted by Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦

The Lake Ontario discussion is tiring. People south of the border, get your shit together. Infantile renaming of bodies of water is the least of your problems. People north of the border, get your shit together. Quick check on where Digital Service Canada messed up:

Side by side view of google baseman as deployed by HICC and one with an added region parameter.

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Opinion | The Data on Self-Driving Cars Is Clear. We Have to Change Course.

I’ve lived around Waymos. They are significantly safer _today_ - this is not hand waving it away. Would you have also called the demise of elevator operators as enshittification? www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/o...

nytimes.com

Compared to human drivers, Waymo cars were involved in 91 percent fewer crashes that resulted in serious injuries.

There’s no cardinal rule in the world that taxi workers will always exist. Jobs have been automated into obsolescence before (when was the last time you saw an elevator operator? gas station attendant?), and today’s taxi/uber drivers will find other, likely better / less exploitative work.

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If you agree that the technological case for self driving cars is sound in itself, then the reality is that it takes $$$ to map and train AI for driving - hence, a bit company. I’d rather regulate Alphabet towards the outcomes we want, than delay/ban it for the much worse status quo.

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Thank you for your work! I agree those billionaires are problematic but I think road safety is important enough to tackle on its own (plus it’d have broad appeal) instead of bundling it with anti-tech or anti-big co advocacy. Besides none of those billionaires run Waymo.

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You may want to re-read my post. My complaint is specifically about how Lake Ontario is shown in the rest of the world outside North America.

As opposed to the humble little driver and car owner who has no remorse for hitting vulnerable road users and sometimes drives uninsured, yeah I’ll take the big corp sensitive to their public image and liability any day.

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Also I lived in SF when those incidents happened. There were far worse incidents involving human drivers that never made headlines, like the taxi that struck me from the back as I was biking.

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I think a significant reduction in bad drivers and road injuries/deaths is something we should all desire, and your dislike for tech shouldn’t get in the way of that.

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Google Maps doesn’t say “Arunachal Pradesh (South Tibet)”, or “West Bank (Judea and Samaria)”, it correctly realizes that the name outside the parenthesis is the globally acceptable name. Why say “Lake Ontario (Lake America)” outside the US/Canada then?

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At least it’s only Lake Ontario when viewed from Canada but yeesh

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There’s a huge difference between a human pointing a phone or camera at kids, and a computer program that can be regulated (and from a company that can be held liable for) seeing a silhouette and not even saving it anywhere. I’d reckon the latter is a lot more acceptable to people.

This came up during the Google street view imagery days and that’s why faces were blurred on those. I understand that it’s not acceptable if you think of it as equivalent to someone recording with a phone (I’d say it’s not), but also we’re pretty far down the road of cameras on cars now.

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I understand the privacy concerns but a public space is always going to have different expectations - and as long as the faces aren’t identifiable and the actual recordings aren’t usable for anything like a social media post, I think it’s a justified tradeoff for road safety.

Most new cars do have cameras for driver support / safety features - and a lot of them are always on, even if the recording isn’t being sent anywhere. Search up “proactive driving assist” and while that’s a Toyota term, every manufacturer has something like it now.

I also think it’s easy to get Waymo to adhere to not using car recordings for uses beyond anonymized training of their “driver” AI. At least, way easier than getting Tesla to agree to anything - and then cars also record everything!

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I think this is one of those “perfect is the enemy of good” moments, the incremental privacy implications of a car with cameras in a world where most cars already have cameras (and Google Street View exists) is minimal. On the other hand road safety improves a lot like you said.

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And it’s less about “American tech company” and more about “Autonomous driving is here to stay and we should realize that reality and reap the road safety benefits”. It’s actually very easy to bully a Waymo as a cyclist. I used to do it all the time!

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The high cost of a Waymo vehicle and the relative scarcity of it (+ the inefficient use of road space) means that transit will continue to be a better choice in cities - as it is in SF, which is seeing a sustained ridership increase despite having more autonomous cars than any city in the world.

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I get the concern around impact on transit ridership but my experience doesn’t reflect that as an imminent issue, at least in dense places like Toronto (including the suburbs). Wait times for a Waymo in SF are often far longer than the wait for a frequent bus.

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Ontario and Toronto should be making the relevant regulatory changes to legalize these ASAP. Abundant Waymos were the best part of living in SF. They’re so much safer to walk/bike/drive around than the avg car.

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To Dems: we don’t need your friendly platitudes while you continue to back protectionist tariffs like you did under Biden. We want you to come out swinging for free trade. Pitch it as helping affordability if you need to. If you won’t, your allies will continue to expand trade with China.

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Reposted by Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦

Eric Lombardi (EricForOLP.ca) @ericlombardi.ca · 25/08/2026

Why is Doug Ford fighting with Toronto over bike lanes? The city has already invested heavily in cycling infrastructure, and Bike Share Toronto is at record-high ridership. His plan will cost taxpayers across the province millions and won’t do anything to improve congestion.

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Yeah, this is one of those things where if you don’t stop it at the start, you’ll never be able to end it. One day the externalities could compound so much that there’s a constituency to get rid of the whole thing, but even California isn’t there yet.

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Can’t believe anyone saw the dumpster fire that is California Prop 13 and decided to replicate it