The self-driving “robotaxi” company Waymo reported in May that its autonomous vehicles carry passengers on about 250,000 paid trips a week. The company currently operates in a handful of American cities, including Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin.
This week, comments Waymo Co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana made in an October interview at the Disrupt conference in San Francisco have resurfaced on Twitter, and people have a lot of thoughts about them.
Mawakana is described as warning that “fatal crashes in self-driving cars are coming,” and saying, “We don’t say ‘whether.’ We say ‘when.’ And we plan for [fatal crashes].”
Some people are calling it “dystopian.”
And others feel like there’s something oddly threatening about the quote.
But on the other hand, some folks think she’s just being practical.
One person wrote, “just wait until you guys find out about the number of fatal crashes from human driven cars.”
Seeing Mawakana’s full quote about this issue certainly provides more context. When asked about the possibility of fatalities involving Waymo vehicles, she replied, “We really worry as a company about those days. You know, we don’t say ‘whether.’ We say ‘when.’ And we plan for them.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Mawakana was asked if she thought society would accept a death potentially caused by a robot. “I think that society will,” she said. “I think the challenge for us is making sure that society has a high enough bar on safety that companies are held to.”
She went on to say, “We have to be in this open and honest dialogue about the fact that we know it’s not perfection.”
According to data from Waymo, the company’s self-driving cars are 91% less likely to be involved in accidents causing serious injury than human-driven cars. But it’s possible that the general public might not be ready just yet to accept deaths or injuries potentially caused by self-driving cars.
Now I’m curious: have you ever ridden in a self-driving car? Would you? Tell me your thoughts in the comments.