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Sunday, July 25, 2021

THE HAPPENING WORLD: The Case for Autonomous Vehicles

Note: this video was sponsored by Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet, Inc., the parent company of Google. Waymo is the spin-in company created to commercialise the technology developed by the Google self-driving car project. Waymo currently operates a driverless taxi service in Phoenix, Arizona, in the U.S., and is, at present, the only such service which operates without human back-up drivers.

This Veritasium video tries out the service, interviews some people from Waymo, and argues that even at the present “SAE Level 4” degree of autonomy, driverless vehicles are safer than the average human driver, so their introduction should be expected to reduce the number and consequences of motor vehicle accidents. This is the case made in the February 2021 Waymo Safety Report [PDF], which is referred to in the video.

This is far from a unanimous opinion, and presented by advocates engaged in developing and selling the technology. But here's their pitch.

Posted at July 25, 2021 13:05