I appreciate your writing and rigor, but want to comment on this assertion you've made above:
"We think that’s important because if Waymo’s software is significantly safer than the average human driver, scaling it up could save thousands of lives."
While this might be true, so would scaling up public transit and greatly reducing (but not eliminating) the need for individual vehicles. There has been so much written about how making transit a shared public good that I suspect I don't need to spell out why it's a better option than individual vehicles. A future with both public transit and AV would be safer. 10% of the investment in AV directed to public transit would be transformative.
I would love to see better funding for transit! Though I wonder how much transit you'd get for the money Alphabet has spent on Waymo. For example, WMATA, the transit agency here in the DC metro area, has budget of around $5 billion. I think that's roughly on par with Alphabet's annual spending on Waymo.
Ah yeah SFMTA's budget is only ~$1.5B! AFAIK Waymo has spent about $30B. I'd be in hog heaven if SFMTA had $3B. There are really substantive economics discussions to be had here about how the investments differ -- as in who they benefit financially and how that shakes out in our society.
Normally, when a substacker tries to hire additional writers, I get upset. I’m paying for the substacker and I’m getting some flunky instead. However, Kai has more than proven himself. I approve of this decision.
Tim and Kai thank you both for your articles here. I really appreciate the balance you're both trying to strike of just being honest without being inherently pro or anti AI the way a lot of places (and people on social media) tend to be.
Enjoying both your work!
I appreciate your writing and rigor, but want to comment on this assertion you've made above:
"We think that’s important because if Waymo’s software is significantly safer than the average human driver, scaling it up could save thousands of lives."
While this might be true, so would scaling up public transit and greatly reducing (but not eliminating) the need for individual vehicles. There has been so much written about how making transit a shared public good that I suspect I don't need to spell out why it's a better option than individual vehicles. A future with both public transit and AV would be safer. 10% of the investment in AV directed to public transit would be transformative.
I would love to see better funding for transit! Though I wonder how much transit you'd get for the money Alphabet has spent on Waymo. For example, WMATA, the transit agency here in the DC metro area, has budget of around $5 billion. I think that's roughly on par with Alphabet's annual spending on Waymo.
Yes, I was going to make this very point. Waymo R&D appears to be very cheap compared to public transit, both in terms of lives saved and in general.
Hey. Thanks again for writing this newsletter!
Ah yeah SFMTA's budget is only ~$1.5B! AFAIK Waymo has spent about $30B. I'd be in hog heaven if SFMTA had $3B. There are really substantive economics discussions to be had here about how the investments differ -- as in who they benefit financially and how that shakes out in our society.
Normally, when a substacker tries to hire additional writers, I get upset. I’m paying for the substacker and I’m getting some flunky instead. However, Kai has more than proven himself. I approve of this decision.
That is great to hear! We've worked really hard to set a high quality bar.
Tim and Kai thank you both for your articles here. I really appreciate the balance you're both trying to strike of just being honest without being inherently pro or anti AI the way a lot of places (and people on social media) tend to be.
Congrats, keep it up! Good stuff all around.