[AlotOfReading]

This is probably a miscommunication issue. Waymo absolutely uses machine learning in the perception and prediction layers of the stack. Underneath that are a few layers of trajectory planning and controls code that don't necessarily need ML.

As for stack accuracy and predictability, they're active areas of research for everyone, and part of the secret sauce. There's lots of little mitigations scattered throughout everyone's stacks for various particular issues, but no silver bullet.