Is Waymo really "there"? It seems like everywhere I turn I'm seeing things that suggest that all of this technology has been hyped far beyond its actual capabilities.
For Uber this number was 13
5600 miles starts becoming "I need to use the wheel only 4 times a year" territory.
It sounds like you're saying I will very likely die 4 times a year.
If anything, perhaps the better performing algorithms will lead to more complacency (inattention) on the part of the driver...
Sort of a Catch-22? (Or is there a better analogy I'm not thinking of.)
Call me a Luddite, but I think I would prefer to steer the car myself, thank you. When someone says, self-driving car, I assume they mean a taxi, bus or train: all well-proven technologies.
I agree that this isn't enough for full autonomy. And that partial autonomy can lead to false security. But I bet there are a lot of drivers who have more than 1 incident every 5k miles.
Waymo is on a whole other level.
But I really would love to see more collaboration rather than competition in this area where safety is critical. Pardon the pun - why does everyone need to reinvent the wheel? And also encumber each other with patents?
Open source beats proprietary competitive stuff like this.