About a month into Waymo's self-driving cars rolling out in the Bay Area, my family and I decided to take one for a Sunday outing. I wasn't in a rush to try it. Self-driving car content is a staple on social media, and I secretly expected the ride to be a huge, thrilling event. My definition of "great" was all wrong.
As someone who's worked in the machine learning space for a decade and remembers the DARPA Grand Challenge back in 2006, I've always been fascinated by self-driving technology. But the Tesla rides I’d been in didn’t count; it hits differently when you’re alone in the car, trusting the technology with your life.
The Waymo pulled up to our house just like any Uber had before. We've become accustomed to the sight of them, as our street has become a Waymo parking bay, with three or four cars often lined up along the curb. My wife and I strapped our child into their car seat in record time, and I settled in, mentally preparing for an exciting ride.
What followed was the most utterly mundane and familiar experience of my life.
Two minutes in, as the car glided out of our neighborhood and onto the Sunnyvale streets, I immediately felt comfortable. Five minutes later, I caught myself doing what I do in a regular car: zoning out, getting lost in my thoughts, and just looking out the window. In that moment, the feeling was immediate and profound: self-driving has arrived.
The experience brought me back to late 2018, just after I moved to San Francisco. My manager at Adobe, Tim Converse, and I were discussing the future of technology. With my background in computer vision, I confidently claimed that "self-driving will be mainstream by the time my child is grown up." Tim, a veteran computer scientist and investor in the Valley, offered me the courtesy of not laughing in my face. Over the next few years, as Waymo and Tesla accelerated their services, I still doubted a full-scale rollout was possible, given the complex regulations and the challenge of coexisting with other forms of transportation.
As Waymo and Tesla expand to more cities, my perspective is shifting. The AI and GenAI we have today are leaps and bounds more impactful than the technology of the past. That Waymo safari made me wonder: am I underestimating the true impact of the very technology I'm so deeply invested in?