I basically agree with this article but I will make two complaints.
1. We certainly have lots of data about crashes from Waymo, but there's lots of other data we don't have that's safety relevant. To start with, crashes are reported in detail but miles driven is just something you get from their advertising blog posts. We don't have breakdowns of highway vs city street, deadhead vs passenger, etc.
More significant for safely is that we don't know anything about disengagements and remote assistance. This doesn't impact how we should assess waymos safety record so far but is significant for how to assess it going forward.
2. I think footnote 3 is wrong because Waymo is a service not a car. If we were considering the safety record of a similar level AV that people owned I would agree that the impact on public transit is not the same as the safety record and belongs in a different conversation. But instead Waymo effectively is a public transit system. So you have to consider whether it's getting people out of Ubers significant safety win), their own car (big safety win but way more variance), or off of the bus (safety negative).
Are there any analyses out there that compare Waymos to vehicles that drive in similar ways? (Eg, Ubers or taxis) Not sure if that data is available, but it might make people feel even better that the comparison is apples-to-apples. It seems plausible to me that Ubers/taxis have lower incident rates than people driving themselves.
however the difference is not even close to statistically significant; with only two fatal crashes observed, the 95% confidence interval for fatalities per 127M VMT is (0.24,7.22), so the CI for waymo's VMT per fatality is (17.5M,529M).
“the abundance movement may need to expand its ambitions: from making things affordable to rebuilding the communities and shared purposes that make abundance worth having”
This sounds good and righteous in tone, but when you actually think about it, isn’t it just everything bagel economic reform? I don’t really see how building more infrastructure and housing, and lowering the cost of electricity and healthcare, go hand-in-hand with building community and shared purpose, unless one makes an argument that those things come from not struggling to find housing and healthcare?
I don’t really want debates over zoning reform or Medicaid drug price negotiation to center around building shared purpose. I want them to center around lowering costs…
This whole piece is about making good apples to apples comparisons. Recognizing what your apple is, and clearly comparing it to other apples.
It suffers greatly for not defining its apple for the reader.
It focuses on Waymo. But it does not explain what Waymo is. It does not say that Wemo is not merely software, but rather a vehicle whose cost to deploy is doubled because of all the extra sensor technology that is installed. That would help most readers.
More importantlyLy, it does not explain that Waymo vehicles cannot drive just anywhere. They are limited to carefully mapped streets, rather than being simply deployable in some novel area. It does not address the weather conditions in which Waymos are taken off the road. It does not explain that sometimes a remote human might help the automated systems in a particular vehicle.
It fails to provide that one or two paragraphs for the reader that gives them understanding of the context and problem that issue.
Some of that would narrow the problem for the reader, making the particular claim more clear. Some would reassure the reader that the so-called Robo taxis are not entirely autonomous at all times, thus redefining the problem. The weather question cuts against the strength of the offered conclusion, so it is particularly important to include— if one is truly presenting the case in good faith
Perhaps the fundamental mistake is assuming that the reader knows as much about the problem as the author— in this case, what Waymo’s are and how they work. But very little of the country has access to a Waymos, so that’s a pretty poor assumption.
I agree with a lot in this article. But were my state and locality to follow its advice, I don’t think I would gain much access to waymos. I don’t think the company is itching to come to New Haven, let where I live three towns away. The article should make clear where Waymo is even interested in deploying.
This is kinda nonsense because the author is specifically responding to someone else (David Zipper at Bloomberg). The article's purpose is not to explain the background of robotaxis generally or Waymo specifically.
Why not leave it up to Waymo the company to explain where they are "even interested in deploying"?
Seems totally fair to evaluate the data that is available and point out, as this article's author does, that it is not especially ambiguous?
If this were a blog post 15-20 years ago, I would agree with you. But I think this is not a blog post.
I think it is an article or newsletter. Moreover, it is not just about refusing someone else. I think it aims to present a case, and the reputation manually provides an opportunity to do so.
I agree with a lot of what you say, but you’re arguing against a different point. Kelsey is saying Waymo as it is currently run provides safe automated taxi service.
There is another argument about when we’ll get true, unlimited self-driving tech that fully replaces human drivers. There I’m more sympathetic to you, in that it seems like we’re still years away (if not more).
“When measuring how dangerous human drivers are, Zipper used the first approach, citing data that says that for every 100,000 miles driven (by any vehicle), there are 1.26 fatalities.”
I think you meant to write “for every 100 million miles driven” here.
Can we get an AMA on how Kelsey raises like 10 kids, runs a school, and writes two bangers a week? Because like I'm very impressed but also jealous.
Also David has a podcast with Wes Marshal. Wes is an engineer and definitely the less reactionary of the two. I know he is a busy professor, but maybe Wes could be talked into doing a mad libs?
This is a sample size of two over two point something years, so not very meaningful, but the other Bloomberg News story that sticks in my mind is a 2023 story stating that 94% of new jobs at S&P 100 companies the year after George Floyd went to persons of color.
Which was not true, and which understandably engendered a lot of white resentment, partly because the article seemed to celebrate this alleged event as companies fulfilling their BLM-related promises, rather than criticizing what would necessarily have been massive discrimination against white job applicants.
What's curious is that both that story and this Zipper story seem to feature very poor use of statistics. Which is not the sort of thing you would expect from a news organization founded by Michael Bloomberg.
You are missing the impact of society's most notorious bottom feeders-trial lawyers. Who are they going to sue when there is an incident. Unless there is tort reform, it will be a free fire zone
I basically agree with this article but I will make two complaints.
1. We certainly have lots of data about crashes from Waymo, but there's lots of other data we don't have that's safety relevant. To start with, crashes are reported in detail but miles driven is just something you get from their advertising blog posts. We don't have breakdowns of highway vs city street, deadhead vs passenger, etc.
More significant for safely is that we don't know anything about disengagements and remote assistance. This doesn't impact how we should assess waymos safety record so far but is significant for how to assess it going forward.
2. I think footnote 3 is wrong because Waymo is a service not a car. If we were considering the safety record of a similar level AV that people owned I would agree that the impact on public transit is not the same as the safety record and belongs in a different conversation. But instead Waymo effectively is a public transit system. So you have to consider whether it's getting people out of Ubers significant safety win), their own car (big safety win but way more variance), or off of the bus (safety negative).
Are there any analyses out there that compare Waymos to vehicles that drive in similar ways? (Eg, Ubers or taxis) Not sure if that data is available, but it might make people feel even better that the comparison is apples-to-apples. It seems plausible to me that Ubers/taxis have lower incident rates than people driving themselves.
Here are a couple slightly older analyses:
https://web.archive.org/web/20231003025000/https://getcruise.com/news/blog/2023/human-ridehail-crash-rate-benchmark/
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2403.14648
in 2021-2022 uber was involved in 0.87 fatalities per 100M vehicle miles traveled, or 114M miles per involvement with a fatal crash, vs waymo's 63.5M.
https://uber.app.box.com/s/lea3xzb70bp2wxe3k3dgk2ghcyr687x3?uclick_id=0d6be752-6614-44b4-ac9e-ad1566cb8f3a
however the difference is not even close to statistically significant; with only two fatal crashes observed, the 95% confidence interval for fatalities per 127M VMT is (0.24,7.22), so the CI for waymo's VMT per fatality is (17.5M,529M).
“the abundance movement may need to expand its ambitions: from making things affordable to rebuilding the communities and shared purposes that make abundance worth having”
This sounds good and righteous in tone, but when you actually think about it, isn’t it just everything bagel economic reform? I don’t really see how building more infrastructure and housing, and lowering the cost of electricity and healthcare, go hand-in-hand with building community and shared purpose, unless one makes an argument that those things come from not struggling to find housing and healthcare?
I don’t really want debates over zoning reform or Medicaid drug price negotiation to center around building shared purpose. I want them to center around lowering costs…
This whole piece is about making good apples to apples comparisons. Recognizing what your apple is, and clearly comparing it to other apples.
It suffers greatly for not defining its apple for the reader.
It focuses on Waymo. But it does not explain what Waymo is. It does not say that Wemo is not merely software, but rather a vehicle whose cost to deploy is doubled because of all the extra sensor technology that is installed. That would help most readers.
More importantlyLy, it does not explain that Waymo vehicles cannot drive just anywhere. They are limited to carefully mapped streets, rather than being simply deployable in some novel area. It does not address the weather conditions in which Waymos are taken off the road. It does not explain that sometimes a remote human might help the automated systems in a particular vehicle.
It fails to provide that one or two paragraphs for the reader that gives them understanding of the context and problem that issue.
Some of that would narrow the problem for the reader, making the particular claim more clear. Some would reassure the reader that the so-called Robo taxis are not entirely autonomous at all times, thus redefining the problem. The weather question cuts against the strength of the offered conclusion, so it is particularly important to include— if one is truly presenting the case in good faith
Perhaps the fundamental mistake is assuming that the reader knows as much about the problem as the author— in this case, what Waymo’s are and how they work. But very little of the country has access to a Waymos, so that’s a pretty poor assumption.
I agree with a lot in this article. But were my state and locality to follow its advice, I don’t think I would gain much access to waymos. I don’t think the company is itching to come to New Haven, let where I live three towns away. The article should make clear where Waymo is even interested in deploying.
This is kinda nonsense because the author is specifically responding to someone else (David Zipper at Bloomberg). The article's purpose is not to explain the background of robotaxis generally or Waymo specifically.
Why not leave it up to Waymo the company to explain where they are "even interested in deploying"?
Seems totally fair to evaluate the data that is available and point out, as this article's author does, that it is not especially ambiguous?
If this were a blog post 15-20 years ago, I would agree with you. But I think this is not a blog post.
I think it is an article or newsletter. Moreover, it is not just about refusing someone else. I think it aims to present a case, and the reputation manually provides an opportunity to do so.
Yeah, it should stand on its own.
I agree with a lot of what you say, but you’re arguing against a different point. Kelsey is saying Waymo as it is currently run provides safe automated taxi service.
There is another argument about when we’ll get true, unlimited self-driving tech that fully replaces human drivers. There I’m more sympathetic to you, in that it seems like we’re still years away (if not more).
“When measuring how dangerous human drivers are, Zipper used the first approach, citing data that says that for every 100,000 miles driven (by any vehicle), there are 1.26 fatalities.”
I think you meant to write “for every 100 million miles driven” here.
Came here to say this.
Can we get an AMA on how Kelsey raises like 10 kids, runs a school, and writes two bangers a week? Because like I'm very impressed but also jealous.
Also David has a podcast with Wes Marshal. Wes is an engineer and definitely the less reactionary of the two. I know he is a busy professor, but maybe Wes could be talked into doing a mad libs?
This is a sample size of two over two point something years, so not very meaningful, but the other Bloomberg News story that sticks in my mind is a 2023 story stating that 94% of new jobs at S&P 100 companies the year after George Floyd went to persons of color.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-black-lives-matter-equal-opportunity-corporate-diversity/
Which was not true, and which understandably engendered a lot of white resentment, partly because the article seemed to celebrate this alleged event as companies fulfilling their BLM-related promises, rather than criticizing what would necessarily have been massive discrimination against white job applicants.
What actually happened was a lot of white people retired, so the net increase in employment at these companies was disproportionately nonwhite. (As the Daily Wire, of all places, pointed out. https://www.dailywire.com/news/bloomberg-flubs-data-for-bombshell-report-that-only-6-of-new-corporate-hires-are-white )
What's curious is that both that story and this Zipper story seem to feature very poor use of statistics. Which is not the sort of thing you would expect from a news organization founded by Michael Bloomberg.
In terms of public acceptance, getting it to not run over cats is a good first step
You are missing the impact of society's most notorious bottom feeders-trial lawyers. Who are they going to sue when there is an incident. Unless there is tort reform, it will be a free fire zone