[ytpete]

My understanding is they don't have the capability to have a ride be flat-out remotely piloted in real time. If the car gets stuck and puts its hazards on, a human can intervene, look at the 360 view from the cameras, and then give the car a simple high-level instruction like "turn left here" or "it's safe to proceed straight." But they can't directly drive the car continuously.

And those moments where the car gives up and waits for async assistance are very obvious to the rider. Most rides in Waymos don't contain any moments like that.

[dml2135]

That's interesting to hear. It may be completely true, I don't really know. The source of my skepticism, however, is that all of the incentives are there for them to not be transparent about this, and to make the cars appear "smarter" than they really are.

Even if it's just a high level instruction set, it's possible that that occurs often enough to present scaling issues. It's also totally possible that it's not a problem, only time will tell.

What I have in mind is the Amazon stores, which were sold as being powered by AI, but were actually driven by a bunch of low-paid workers overseas watching cameras and manually entering what people were putting in their carts.

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-just-walk-out-actual...