Your Next Gig: Map the Streets For Self-Driving Cars

I went for a drive in San Francisco’s Mission District last month. It was late morning, and there wasn’t much traffic. As I wended my way through the side streets, I avoided a double-parked armored car and steered around construction sites. Though it might have seemed like an aimless outing, my brief sortie was anything but. Every centimeter I drove, every object I encountered, and even the double line I crossed to avoid the Brinks truck was being recorded by a device affixed across the top edge of the windshield, just above the rearview mirror.

Soon, thousands of people might be installing those gadgets in their cars, hoping to make some extra bucks–and, in the process, contributing to the next great crowdsourced project: a ridiculously detailed and constantly updated map of the world’s roads, readable only by the vast swarm of self-driving cars that will populate our byways.

Steven Levy

https://www.wired.com/story/your-next-gig-map-the-streets-for-self-driving-cars/