Tekedra Mawakana

We make all of this data transparent.

We hand it to researchers so they can make their arguments.

And so it's been really fun lately to watch different sectors of the economy start to talk about how powerful this technology is.

We have Dr. John Slotkin, a neurosurgeon, who has just calculated that 900%

billion to 1.25 trillion could be saved if our technology was rolled out, if every car on the road was a Waymo.

But this is the problem.

people are really comfortable with the number of people who die on the roads.

40,000 people dead, 1.2 million globally, and avoidable in many cases isn't something upon which we share collective outrage or even moderate discomfort.

And so we have to introduce sort of that reality in order for the technology to be viewed as solving a problem that society currently faces, because we've just accepted it.

Why?

Because we don't experience these as 737s falling out of the sky every day.

but that's what it would be if we actually experienced it as mass casualties.

We experience it, you know, this person's mom, that person, you know, my uncle.

And so because of that, we sort of have to remind people that the status quo is totally unacceptable, and it's even more unacceptable when you have technology that could help address it.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I think what you're saying is how comfortable are humans with this technology being better drivers than humans?

You know, it goes back to the status quo.

People don't generally view themselves or their neighbors or their friends or everyone they know as unsafe drivers.

Even when they're distracted, drunk, tired and angry, we just kind of accept that that's the human condition.

And so I think in the case of the child in Santa Monica, I mean, for us, our car was traveling 17 miles per hour, and we were able to get to six miles per hour before making contact.

Obviously, we want to make no contact, but we know that was superhuman performance.