When Robots Take the Wheel: How Chinese Taxi Drivers Navigate a Changing Employment Landscape

Our study investigates how taxi drivers in Wuhan, China, perceive the employment risks posed by the rise of autonomous robotaxis. With Baidu's driverless taxi service capturing around 4% of the city’s e-hailing market in 2024, the city presents a social laboratory to examine both the benefits and societal concerns surrounding robotaxis. Drawing on 17 semi-structured interviews conducted in January 2025 we provide early insights into how these taxi drivers navigate technological transformation amid precarious employment. Counter-intuitively, rather than viewing automation as an imminent threat, most interviewees expressed limited concern about being displaced by autonomous vehicles. We identify three mechanisms underlying this indifference: Relative Threat Assessment – Drivers often see other existing problems in the industry as more immediate and pressing than automation. Traditional taxi drivers now receive fewer orders because of growing competition from the rapidly expanding number of online ride-hailing drivers, and algorithms that systematically give them fewer orders. Meanwhile, ride-hailing drivers themselves face intense pressure by the platform—they are constantly monitored and required to accept low-paying rides. Competition among drivers is fierce across both groups. Crucially, these dynamics are not accidental; they are tolerated by state regulation, which upholds the broader structure of control from above. Spatial Segregation – The government has restricted robotaxi operations to the outskirts of Wuhan due to technological limitations and public complaints, creating a perceived safety buffer in the city centre. The core/periphery binary constructs an imaginary "techno-safety zone", enabling the government’s risk control and diminishing drivers’ risk awareness. Liability Displacement – Drivers often express a strong belief that it is the government's responsibility to safeguard employment. This belief reduces the perceived urgency of individual action, as many assume that driverless cars will not fully replace their jobs because the government will intervene to prevent it. These dynamics reflect what we term a “techno-alienation syndrome”—a collective coping strategy under conditions of liquid modernity (Bauman, 2018), where rapid technological change outpaces institutional and individual adaptability. By relegating automation to the periphery of daily life, drivers suspend embracing new technology and its risks in order to preserve short-term psychological stability. Furthermore, we find that this coping strategy manifests differently depending on drivers’ socio-economic positioning. We identify three driver archetypes: Survival-oriented drivers, who see driving as a last resort to make ends meet, often working long hours. Their existing job insecurity is so acute that the threat of robotaxis is viewed as just another challenge among many. The majority of our interviewees fall into this category. Opportunity-oriented drivers, who use ride-hailing as a flexible, short-term income source to supplement other businesses or side jobs. Since they have other assets as a safety net, they are largely indifferent to the impact of robotaxis. Defiant Drivers, who are actively resisting industry changes, by engaging in strikes or seeking employment abroad, though these efforts remain largely ineffective in countering systemic labor precarity. This constitutes only a small minority of our interviewees. These differences reflect an adaptivity inequality: while all drivers are exposed to the same technology, their capacity to respond is shaped by distinct human capital, social networks, and career histories. The unequal availability of transition pathways—not just the presence of automation—shapes perceptions of technological threat. Although robotaxis are not a primary concern now, drivers recognize that large-scale deployment could pose challenges in the future. For “survival-oriented” and “defiant” drivers, career transitions are fraught with challenges and uncertainties due to low education, advanced age, and weak professional networks. Many see taxi work as their only viable option, with no concrete alternative plans if robotaxis become dominant. Opportunity-oriented drivers, however, do not share those concerns.Taxi driving, because of its low barrier of entry, serves a dual socioeconomic function in China: it acts as transitional work during career interludes while simultaneously providing a last-resort occupation for those lacking qualifications. This study explains (1) what social factors underlie the taxi drivers’ indifferent attitude toward technological change, and (2) how social origin mediates the divergence in employment expectations under the equivalent technological exposure. Our findings challenge dominant narratives that present automation as a sudden rupture in employment. In Wuhan, the rise of robotaxis unfolds as one layer in a broader landscape of precarity, marked by insecure work, platform control, and limited worker agency. For many drivers, labor instability—not automation itself—is the defining feature of their employment experience. By foregrounding how vehicle automation of driving interacts with existing inequalities, this study contributes novel empirical insight into how workers in transitional economies absorb and interpret technological change. It calls for reframing debates on AI and employment, shifting focus from technological determinism toward the lived realities of precarious labor under platform capitalism.