If you needed a single image to sum up San Francisco in 2026, here it is: a dog, alone, chilling in the back of a Waymo at Castro & Market. No human companion. No explanation. Just vibes.

We have questions. Many questions. Did someone order a Waymo for their dog? Can you order a Waymo for your dog? Is this an extremely chill golden retriever who figured out the app? Has the singularity already arrived, and the machines decided to start by serving our pets?

Whatever the backstory, there's something beautifully absurd — and maybe a little unsettling — about the scene. We live in a city where a self-driving car ferrying an unaccompanied canine barely makes people blink. Castro & Market, a Wednesday morning, business as usual.

Here's the thing: we're genuinely pro-innovation at The Dissent. Autonomous vehicles represent one of the most promising developments for urban transit — fewer drunk drivers, lower costs, better mobility for people who can't drive. The technology is real, it's improving, and San Francisco is the proving ground. That's worth celebrating.

But it's also worth asking: what are the actual rules here? Waymo's terms of service require a human rider. If people are sending their pets on solo joyrides, that's a liability question someone at the CPUC should probably think about before — not after — a 90-pound Labrador triggers a roadside assistance call with no one to open the door.

This is the eternal San Francisco tension: we move fast, we break things, and then we spend three years and $4 million on a task force to figure out what happened. Maybe just this once, we could get ahead of it.

Until then, godspeed to that dog. Living better than most of us.