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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 23rd, 2024

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  • Sure, Waymo’s own numbers should be taken with a grain of salt; and obviously they will publish numbers that will make them look good. I’m with you there.

    But at the same time, Waymo and other robotaxi companies are required by law to report any small accident (which makes sense, we want them to be safe)

    Compared to human drivers, the IIHS estimates that about 1/2 of all property damaged and about 1/3 of injuries never get reported, for various reasons. So that skews the distribution in the other direction.

    IMHO I see no reason to doubt Waymo’s numbers. Obviously, a machine, given enough training, will perform much better than a human. It never gets tired, it has a much larger training regime than humans, it won’t get distracted by a phone call, and it has better sensors. I’m a bit surprised that this point is highly contested.

    I get that the economy side of it can be controversial (are we going to a world where no one owns cars? Is all the surplus going to alphabet? Etc), but safety seems like a clear win, to me.