[hahaxdxd123]

This doesn't really make sense to me.

What does Waymo get out of this? It seems to me like if the value proposition in self driving is there (privacy, consistency, etc), people would be willing to download another app? Especially once word of mouth goes through.

Plus currently the Waymo app has neat features (when the car is on its way to you, it shows you stuff like when it's stopped at a red light or whatever) that Uber probably can't replicate due to API access issues.

[sschueller]

What people don't realize is that full autonomous does not work 100%. There are always people watching and taking over if something goes a foul.

I can see Uber drivers sitting in front of computers taking over from the autonomous system to provide a pseudo autonomous experience.

[ra7]

To clarify: they have remote assistance teams, but they cannot “take over” and control the car at all. All they can do is things like plotting a path to go around if the vehicle gets stuck. They have no ability to do safety critical interventions, the vehicle is capable of reaching a ‘minimum risk condition’ all on its own.

Uber drivers would also need to be trained to do this and Uber needs to setup facilities for this. I don’t believe this is likely.

[tialaramex]

You can't drive the cars remotely.

Waymo sends physical human drivers to a car if the Waymo driver (software) is stuck. Remote humans can reach into the model to fix e.g. label problems (e.g the driver thinks this is a pedestrian but it's actually a life size cardboard Captain Picard, thus it's not a problem to drive very close to it) but they cannot drive the car.