> Waymos still suffer from erratic behavior at pickup/dropoff, around pedestrians, badly marked roads and generally jam on the brakes at the first sign of any ambiguity.
As do most of the ridesharing drivers I interact with nowadays, sadly.
The difference is that Waymo has a trajectory that is getting better while human rideshare drivers have a trajectory that is getting worse.
Society accepts that humans make mistakes and considers it unavoidable, but there exists a much higher bar expected of computers/automation/etc. even if a waymo is objectively safer in terms of incidents per miles driven, one fatality makes headlines and adds scrutiny about “was it avoidable?”, whereas humans we just shrug.
I think the theme of this extends to all areas where we are placing technology to make decisions, but also where no human is accountable for the decision.
> Society accepts that humans make mistakes and considers it unavoidable, but there exists a much higher bar expected of computers/automation/etc.
There are a horde of bicyclists and pedestrians who disagree with you and are hoping that automated cars take over because humans are so terrible.
There are a horde of insurance companies who disagree with you and are waiting to throw money to prove their point.
When automated driving gets objectively better than humans, there will be a bunch of groups who actively benefit and will help push it forward.
> there exists a much higher bar expected of computers/automation/etc. even if a waymo is objectively safer in terms of incidents per miles driven, one fatality makes headlines and adds scrutiny about “was it avoidable?”
This doesn’t seem to be happening. One, there are shockingly few fatalities. Two, we’ve sort of accepted the tradeoff.
It does happen:
https://sfist.com/2024/05/14/waymo-now-under-federal-investi...
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-closes-probe-int...
Similarly for Cruise: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-05-16/woman-ge...
Sure. It happened. Folks moved on. Car companies are constantly being sued and investigated.
Cruise was outrageous because it fucked up in a way a human never would. (More germane: GM doesn’t have Google’s cash flow.)
Society only cares about the individual and no one else. If Uber/Lyft continue to enshittify with drivers driving garbage broken down cars, drivers with no standards (ie. having just smoked weed) and ever rising rates, eventually people will prefer the Waymos.