Waymo CEO Expresses Confidence Its Cars Wouldn't Have Killed Elaine Herzberg (washingtonpost.com)

theodp writes: Nearly a week after an autonomous Uber SUV claimed the first life in testing of self-driving vehicles, The Washington Post reports that Waymo CEO John Krafcik says he is confident its cars would have performed differently under the circumstances (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source), since they are intensively programmed to avoid such calamities. "I can say with some confidence that in situations like that one with pedestrians -- in this case a pedestrian with a bicycle -- we have a lot of confidence that our technology would be robust and would be able to handle situations like that," Krafcik said Saturday when asked if a Waymo car would have reacted differently than the self-driving Uber.

In explaining its since-settled lawsuit against Uber last year, Google charged that Uber was "using key parts of Waymo's self-driving technology," and added it was "seeking an injunction to stop the misappropriation of our designs." In announcing the settlement of the lawsuit last month, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi noted, "we are taking steps with Waymo to ensure our LIDAR and software represents just our good work." A Google spokesperson added, "We have reached an agreement with Uber that we believe will protect Waymo's intellectual property now and into the future. We are committed to working with Uber to make sure that each company develops its own technology. This includes an agreement to ensure that any Waymo confidential information is not being incorporated in Uber Advanced Technologies Group hardware and software." All of which might prompt some to ask: was Elaine Herzberg collateral damage in Google and Uber's IP war? "I want to be really respectful of Elaine [Herzberg], the woman who lost her life and her family," Krafcik continued. "I also want to recognize the fact that there are many different investigations going on now regarding what happened in Tempe on Sunday." His assessment, he said, was "based on our knowledge of what we've seen so far with the accident and our own knowledge of the robustness that we've designed into our systems."

Comments

Re:Monday-morning quarterbacking and spin control

[fluffernutter]

Vehicle accidents kill 32,000 a year. There are 222 million drivers. Making a conservative assumption that 90% of the deaths are licensed drivers, you have a 0.013% chance of dying in a car accident. Those are pretty good odds, and a long way to go for self driving to make a dent in that. Drivers that remain alert, look ahead and use good practices such as slowing down to appropriate speeds for conditions decrease their odds even more.

Putting that into perspective, the CDC estimates that there are 45,000 deaths a year from *second hand* exposure to cigarette smoke. Maybe that is something we should tackle first, and then come back to self driving when the technology is fully baked.