Lauren WeinsteinThis is the script of my national network radio report yesterday on increasing problems with robotaxis interfering with emergency first responders. As always there may have been minor wording variations from this script as I presented this report live on air.
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Well we've talked before about the concerns that the public in general and emergency first responders in particular have about robotaxis. And we've talked about the various stories of them freezing up, blocking intersections, invading law enforcement activities, slowing ambulances and paramedics from reaching injured persons, blowing past street stop signs and school bus stop signals and more. And the 800 pound robotaxi gorilla is Alphabet's Waymo. Alphabet as we know is also the parent company of Google.
Waymo is rapidly expanding into more and more cities. You might think that with these kinds of incidents and others, like Waymo depots keeping residents up all night with loud noises from robotaxis coming in and out, and many other Waymo-related problems, that Waymo would be bending over backwards to be good citizens in the communities that they want to serve.
But it's more apparent than ever now that at least when it come to Waymo, they've inherited the "move fast and break things" arrogance that was a hallmark of Google in its early days, before they grew up a bit and actually entered the period where they became world class when it came to user privacy and security. But it seems that we've now come full circle, and hubris is indeed the word for Alphabet and Waymo.
Some of this is undoubtedly being driven -- no pun intended of course -- by the related AI-hype. And AI-hype is being supercharged by the federal government pressing for "AI Everywhere". Massive, electricity and water hungry, often polluting data centers being pushed into unspoiled rural areas, federal pressure being exerted on states to try force them not to implement their own common-sense AI regulations. Those could help protect their citizens against AI Slop, deepfakes, and AI-powered spams, scams, and malware. And we know why this is the case, politicians in both parties know which side of their bread the butter is on, and Big Tech knows where to make campaign contributions.
Some states have begun to fight back a bit against the rampant risks from robotaxis. California for example has just declared some rules about giving emergency responders the ability to have some control over where robocars can go and when they have to immediately leave an area. And they've set a short time limit on how long Waymo robotaxi remote operators have to respond to calls from emergency responders.
But really this is only scratching the surface of what's needed. Because Waymo now clearly has no real interest in what the public thinks about the sometimes dangerous mess their robotaxis are creating. They're now actually refusing to attend scheduled public meetings to discuss these problems with the public, saying that they've already said all that they have to say. Total, absolute arrogance. They're Alphabet, they're Google, they're Waymo. They're going to do what they want to do. And they feel that nobody can stop them.
That's the view of Big Tech generally these days. And maybe they're right that nobody can stop them on their relentless march to further enrich their billionaire CEOs. Because so far, regulators and politicians by and large -- with a handful of exceptions -- have been letting them run wild over our communities when it comes to robocars, robotaxis, and AI more generally. It's clear that there seems to be a widespread feeling among these firms and their supporters that AI is at the top and ordinary people are at the bottom.
So we see what the reality looks like. It's not the AI systems themselves that we have to fear -- it's not evil machines plotting against us. They are, after all, just machines. It's the AI firms and the managements of these firms who need to be held responsible for what the AI push is doing, and it's up to us to care enough to elect leaders who can hopefully find ways to make that actually happen.
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