Name: Waymo.

Age: Founded in 2009 as the Google Self-Driving Car Project.

Appearance: A driverless taxi and recruitment service.

How futuristic – and they’ve been working on this since 2009? Actually, it goes back to 2004 and a prototype autonomous car built by Stanford University. The Google project became known as Waymo in 2016.

Any idea how many more years until we see the first self-driving taxis? They already have them in San Francisco, LA and Phoenix, among other places.

You mean they’re testing the technology on actual roads? No, I mean you can get a Waymo to take you somewhere in San Francisco right now …

It’s a miracle! … and also possibly offer you a job while you’re in there.

Now that’s service. How does the technology behind the recruitment end of this whole thing work? It’s surprisingly lo-fi: someone riding in a Waymo left a handwritten note advertising some senior software engineer positions “to work on AI/music project”, along with the company website and an email address for applicants.

Presuming that anyone getting into a driverless taxi would be precisely the kind of devil-may-care nerd they were looking for? Exactly.

Did it work? The person who left the note, the Influur CEO Alessandra Angelini, says she received about 60 CVs as a result.

I’m amazed 60 qualified applicants got into the same Waymo that day. That’s statistically unlikely, but someone who did hire the taxi took a pic of the note and posted it on social media, where it was viewed 300,000 times.

So that’s how it works. Job offers aren’t the only advantage of driverless technology. Another rider left a note in a Waymo looking for a date, listing his age (26), his height (“5ft 10in on a good day”), other particulars (“runs marathons”) and a phone number.

Did that work? He got 200 replies, but again, only because someone else posted a pic on social media.

It seems this new recruitment system relies rather heavily on third parties with X accounts. Also, the taxis get cleaned pretty regularly, so your ad won’t last long.

Will the novelty of this approach wear off once driverless taxis become commonplace? Probably. I mean, you wouldn’t respond to an ad for a date that somebody left in an Uber.

Do say: “Enjoy the ride, and thank you for your application!”

Don’t say: “Drivers wanted.”