A peek in to the future
“Are you looking for a slot machine to play?”
I turned around to see a well-dressed, pleasant-looking young woman asking me the question.
“Yes,” I replied.
I had just left the blackjack table and wanted to take a break and play slots. The casino was mostly empty on a Wednesday evening, and I was walking around looking for a slot machine that I would like to play. I am partial to slots that have a large spinning wheel on top, giving you a chance to spin for extra points.
“I have a secret power! I know which machine is ready to pay out a jackpot,” she whispered, stepping really close, her lips inches away from my ear.
“Okay,” I answered, humoring her.
“Follow me,” she said, gesturing toward a slot machine around the next corner.
I stood next to her as she lifted her hand, her index finger pointing at the bright image on a gigantic screen at the front of the machine. It showed an old man with a flowing beard pushing a wheelbarrow filled with gold coins that were spilling out.
“Look at that!” she said triumphantly. “That machine is overflowing with gold coins and is about to burst! Put in a coin, and all the gold will tumble out of the old man’s cart and into your lap.”
Seeing my stunned look, she turned the corner and called out to me while pointing at another brightly lit machine. This one showed three sacks filled with silver, gold, and diamonds.
“The sacks are full!” she declared excitedly. “You put in your money, and they will shower you with gold and diamonds!”
“Why don’t you put in your own money if you’re so sure?” I asked sarcastically.
“I don’t have any money left,” she replied, pouting her lips and getting ready to burst into tears.
I handed her a dollar, which she slid into the machine and excitedly pushed the button. She kept jumping up and down, yelling, “Jackpot! Jackpot!” over and over again, until the rotating dials stopped and nothing happened.
“Uh-oh!” she said. “Can you spare another dollar?”
I smiled at her and turned away as she walked out of the casino and into teeming Fremont Street. I watched her meld into the crowd and disappear from view.
I had just left the blackjack table at the center of the small casino in downtown Las Vegas, where I had befriended two very well-dressed gentlemen in well-cut suits and ties, speaking in a language that I didn’t understand.
“We’re speaking Swedish,” one of them replied to my query.
“We work for a drone maker in northern Sweden, and we are here for a drone convention,” he added.
As to why they were in downtown Las Vegas as opposed to the fancier Strip was unclear, and I did not press.
We sipped chilled beer while playing cards at one of the few $5 tables left in Vegas. They were both terrible at the game and losing money fast. I tried to help them, but they just could not follow my logic and kept repeating their mistakes. I then left the table to look for a slot machine.
A while later, I ran into the two of them again.
“Let’s have a drink,” they said, and we sidled up to the bar.
It was nearly 100 degrees outside the doors, but freezing inside, and I was cold in my shorts and T-shirt. We chatted about life in Europe versus the United States and how fascinated they were with American culture.
Later that evening, I walked down to the end of Fremont Street and walked into a Thai restaurant that I had found on Yelp. There was a short line outside, waiting for tables. I agreed to sit at the bar and was quickly seated.
I ordered a beer and a spicy flat noodle dish.
Sitting to my left was a couple who seemed very high. They were given the bill. The woman rummaged through her purse and produced a gift card.
“There should be $40 in there. Please charge it,” she said.
She then proceeded to pull cash from her purse for the remaining $8. She brought out a few rumpled $1 bills and then a stack of quarters. She lined them up on the counter, shrugged, and said, “Sorry, I don’t have any money for a tip.”
The bartender came back and said that the gift card didn’t go through.
“Oh my Lord, I have been duped!” she said aloud.
“Do you have any money?” she nudged her partner.
“Where are we?” he asked with a puzzled look.
“Can I come back and pay?” asked the woman.
By now, the manager of the restaurant had arrived.
“You shouldn’t do this,” he said. “We are a small business.”
“Why didn’t you say you didn’t have any money? We would have fed you,” he added.
The couple got up sheepishly and shuffled out of the restaurant, their heads down.
When I got back to the casino and found a seat at the blackjack table, I saw the same couple out of the corner of my eye. I turned and looked at them.
They were chuckling and playing slots.
Later, I took an Uber to the Strip and called a Zoox taxi via the app. Zoox is Amazon’s self-driving taxi, and it had been introduced in Las Vegas just a few weeks before I went there. I guess making every American sit on their couches and order “stuff” nonstop wasn’t enough. They now wanted to get you when you finally stepped out of the house. They also don’t cover downtown Las Vegas, only the fancier areas around the Strip.
The app was easy to use, even for a non-techie like me. It showed that my taxi would arrive in 15 minutes, and, on the dot, the car arrived.
It’s hard to describe the car. People have said that it looks like a “toaster on wheels.” It is small and very cute, with funky lights and bright headlights. I had to use the app to open the doors, and once inside, I had to put on a seatbelt before the doors would close and the car would start.
The Zoox self-driving taxi that I took.
There were four seats, with two seats facing each other. There was no steering wheel and, of course, no driver. The seats were firm but comfortable.
Once I settled in, the doors closed and the car started. It was whisper-quiet and began playing music. I noticed the small flat screen next to my seat, from which I could adjust the air conditioning and music. The roof was lit up with small LED lights, giving it the appearance of a starry sky.
The car took the back roads parallel to the Strip and drove alongside regular cars. It never exceeded the speed limit, never made a sudden stop, and never made a wrong turn. It was bizarre to be sitting in a car without a steering wheel or a driver, being driven by a computer.
The car dropped me off at my destination at exactly the time the app had predicted.
It was a view into the future, which was almost upon us. I could envision a time when you could simply summon a self-driving car from your home and have it drive you anywhere you wanted.
The Uber driver back to downtown after my Zoox ride was an older Middle Eastern man.
We started talking.
“What! You rode one of those crazy things?” he exclaimed in shock.
“I am glad that you made it out alive. Nobody in their right mind is ever going to get on one of those things. Only yesterday, I saw a Zoox crash head-on with a Tesla on self-drive.”
He laughed all the way to my destination, while I pondered the future of Uber drivers and others whose jobs would soon be taken over by AI and robots.
If Las Vegas is a peek into the future, it is very dark indeed.
We’ll have fancy stuff for a few and nothing for everyone else.
