NEW YORK — By Matt Ress, AI Bee Reel Staff

February 14, 2026

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — A billion-dollar autonomous vehicle sits paralyzed in the street with its door slightly ajar, while a guy on a rusty bicycle with a DoorDash bag pedals furiously toward it to gently push it shut for $2. The state-of-the-art Jaguar I-Pace remained totally frozen in traffic until the freelance specialist arrived to perform the high-tech maneuver.

“This is the absolute peak of hands-free driving,” said Marcus Sterling, VP of Human Redundancy. “We realized that instead of installing a simple spring to close the door automatically, we could disrupt the gig economy. Now, a car that costs more than a house is completely dependent on a teenager named Kyle getting there before his burrito delivery gets cold. It proves that robotaxis cannot escape the human element.”

“Safety is our top priority, which is why we don’t trust the robots to touch the doors,” explained Linda Cross, Director of Exterior Handles. “Our sensors detected a 0.01% chance of a ghost being in the doorway, so the system locked up to prevent liability. Hiring a human to sprint across four lanes of traffic to poke the car is simply the most scalable solution for mass transit.”

At press time, Waymo announced a new partnership with TaskRabbit to send gig workers to manually turn the steering wheel on sharp corners.

Inspired by the real story: Robotaxi companies are hiring third-party gig workers to rush out and close doors left open by passengers so the cars can move. Read the full story.