Latest / Revisionist History / I Love You Waymo

Transcript

I Love You Waymo · Revisionist History

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm standing outside a Soso coffeehouse in a strip mall
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: near Phoenix, Arizona, perfectly blue skies, maybe seventy degrees an
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: imperceptible breeze. My producer, Jacob Smith is here with me.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: We're waiting for the coolest car ever made.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: So it's say, hold on, let's see what we got here.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: We got a Is it a Nissan?
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: No?
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: No, it's a Pacifica.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: It's a Chrysler Pacifica. Actually a Chrysler Pacifica hybrid, a
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Mini Man tricked out by the geniuses at Google with
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: every conceivable high tech sensor and gizmo known to man,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: so that it can drive itself, a fully autonomous vehicle.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Google calls it Weaimo, and here on the outskirts of
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Phoenix you can order Weimo on an app like an
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: uber our. Weimo silently glides up like a spooky ghost
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: ship and we get on board.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: So we have this thing.
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: Should we start the ride?
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: My name is Malcolm Gladwell. Welcome to season six of
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. We
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: are back, ladies and gentlemen, with a heartwarming story of
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: what I learned riding around in a weymo on a
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: gorgeous Arizona morning. Me and Jacob grinning ear to ear,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: bouncing up and down like little boys on their first
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: visit to Disneyland. We were on our way to a
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: new century, a new era, the dawn of a new age.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Although I have to be honest, the future was now
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: what we expected.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: It was better.
• 2:17
  Speaker 5: The doors are closing, heading to Alamo Draft House Cinema Tempe.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: Oh man, here we go.
• 2:27
  Speaker 6: Your seatbelts.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: We sit in the back. You have to sit in
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: the back of Weimo. If we lean slightly forward, we
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: can see the van's steering wheel turning all by itself.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: This car is not capable of breaking the speed.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: Of Well, I'm curious about that. That's a good question, right,
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: Like what if we had to?
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: What if can I enter?
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Like my wife is pregnant and we're rushing to the hospital.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: I think the only things we could do is press
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: a button. This is pull over. If we were scared
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: or something. I see that, what does it pullover?
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: We do not pull over. We cruise down the streets
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: of Chandler, somewhere unseen of them, and artificial intelligences are
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: guiding us unerringly towards our destination the Alamo Draft House,
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Cinema and Tempe. We approach Attorney Toyota with a student
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: driver nervously navigating an intersection.
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: Oh god, the irony.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: A human, a human learning a task that will, within
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: years of its completion, be obsolete.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: And it's in that human's rear view mirror is the
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: future of that?
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: We must We should yank that driver, the student driver,
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: out and just say why don't you learn? Why don't
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: you learn to type on a manual typewriter? That's about
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: as useful. Here's a BlackBerry, send some messages. Look, there's
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: a student loser. Did we realize in that moment what
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: weima would mean for our future, for all of our future?
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: Not yet.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: We were still in the blisstate. My epiphany would not
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: come until later that afternoon, when I found myself sprinting
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: desperately alongside our weimo.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Let's go Weimo.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: What Jacob looked on helplessly from the backseat. Women doesn't
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: know what he's doing? Ash woman knows what he's doing.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: He doesn't know what I'm doing. Well, come back to this,
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: I promise.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: He thinks he's gotten away from me, not so fast,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: my friend.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Have you ever watched videos from tech conferences like TED?
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: The signature TED conference is an annual gathering of people
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: who are excited about technology talking to people who are
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: excited about technology, about how exciting technology is? You know
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: the type turtlenecks way into bitcoin. Picture of Elon Musk
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: on the home screen of the iPhone twelve pro max.
• 5:03
  Speaker 7: So In eighteen eighty five, Carl Bens invented the automobile.
• 5:07
  Speaker 7: Later that year, he took it out of the first
• 5:09
  Speaker 7: public test drive and true story, crashed into a wall.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: TED conferences always have at least one speaker gliding across
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: the stage, clicking through powerpoints on the future of the automobile.
• 5:23
  Speaker 7: For the last one hundred and thirty years, we've been
• 5:25
  Speaker 7: working around that least reliable part of the car, of
• 5:28
  Speaker 7: the driver.
• 5:29
  Speaker 6: We may be the last generation to own cars. Our
• 5:33
  Speaker 6: kids and grandkids. They may never have to learn to drive.
• 5:38
  Speaker 6: They may never have to worry about driving around and
• 5:40
  Speaker 6: looking for parking or speeding tickets or drunk driving. And
• 5:45
  Speaker 6: the best part is they could go their entire life
• 5:48
  Speaker 6: without ever seeing a car accident. Driverless cars are being
• 5:52
  Speaker 6: touted as one of the most disruptive technologies of our time.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Are you skeptical? I know some of you are. While
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Jacob and I were cruising around the suburbs of Phoenix,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: I took a video from the backseat of our Weimo
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: of the steering wheel turning by itself as the houses
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: and sidewalks whosh past. I tweeted out the video and
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: watched from the back seat as the replies flooded in,
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: comments like I would be freaking out the entire time.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Been very nice listening to your podcasts. Your upcoming demise
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: is a great loss. This will all end in tears.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: A lot of people are frightened by the idea of
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: a self driving car, but let me tell you don't
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: be frightened. From the moment we got in the minivan,
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: neither Jacob nor I could believe what a calming, measured,
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: completely zen experience we were having. Right now, it's slowing
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: for a speed bump. Oh, nicely done, Mamo. There's no
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: way I would have I didn't even know. I wouldn't
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: even I would have gone boom over that thing. Weimo
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: slowed smoothly for a stoplight, kept a respectful distance from
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: other drivers. One time we encountered a man in a
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: wheelchair sharing the road. Weimo decelerated elegantly, gave him a
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: generous berth, then cautiously pulled away.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: I also have to say totally trust the thing, like
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: I have not thought for a second.
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: I feel safe. Yeah, this is a safe space.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: This is an automotive safe space.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you one thing. It's certainly a safer space
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: in the passenger see of my car when I'm driving.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: Okay, we just got someone just pulled out in front
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: of us.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Anticipated the second person slowed right down. That was some
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: great defensive driving.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we encountered some terrible driving from another vehicle. We
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: just cut across like six lanes and Weimo kind of unfazed.
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: Way might handle it.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Well like a pro.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: We reached our destination, the Alamo Cinema Draft House parking lot.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: We were so excited we decided to call up Sashwat
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Penny Grahi, the senior director of product management at Weimo.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: We had so much to ask him about, Like all
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: the sensors on our minivan, so we have we have
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: a few.
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: So are you clearly on the doom what you're seeing
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: on the doom at the top that's that's where we
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: have a nineteen camera complex over there. So those are
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: cameras plus two lasers. One is a medium range, one
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: is a long range.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: The lasers are technically light our systems three D scanners.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: It's what NASA uses when they land on Mars. The
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: laser looks around and instantly creates an incredibly detailed map
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: of everything in its range.
• 8:31
  Speaker 5: So that can see almost three football fields.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: So wait, wait three three foot that can see three
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: hundred yards in every direction.
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: That's right, that's right. Wow, So we yeah, and you
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: know it can become very helpful. You may have realized.
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: I noticed this as you were going on forty five
• 8:50
  Speaker 5: miles per hour roots in Phoenix. The harder the speed,
• 8:54
  Speaker 5: the longer the car needs to reason about is anything
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: coming at that speed?
• 8:57
  Speaker 8: Right if it's a very.
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: Low speed seeing shorter distances. Okay, So those are the
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: you know, medium and long range riders, and that's why
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: they're placed atop as well, because you know you need
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: a wider range view very well complimented by those smaller
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: spinning things you must have seen on the sides of
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: the cars. Yeah, and so that helps. For example, imagine
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: you were in a busy parking lot in front of
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: a Costco or a Walmart. Cars are part very close
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: to each other.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Because he went on sensors on the back, right, on
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: the side, microphones to pick up things like a police siren.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: I asked sash Watt whether WEIMO had a blind spot
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: like anything. It couldn't see.
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: One clarification, Malcolm, when you said blind spot, did you
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: mean the classical blind spot in our human driving? You know,
• 9:42
  Speaker 5: for example, you're trained when you get your driving license
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: to not just rely on your side camera.
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: You just check.
• 9:47
  Speaker 9: Oh no, absolutely not, so.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: That we do not have absolutely not. WEIMO has no
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: blind spots. Arizona has a dubious distinction of being one
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: of the most dangerous states in the country for pedestrians,
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: with Phoenix as the prime culprit. This is not a
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: city designed for anything but the convenience of automobiles. What
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: a city full of Chrysler PACIFICA hybrids tricked out with radar, lightar,
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: nineteen cameras, microphones, and the ability to see three hundred
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: yards in every direction make Phoenix safer? Yes, it would,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: But the future will get even better than that, way
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: more better. I need to take you on a brief
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: digression away from the sunny streets of Phoenix to a
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: call I had with Roseanne McManus, a professor of political
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: science and international affairs at Penn State. McManus specializes in
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: what's known as deterrence theory. Why do some conflicts lead
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: to war and others just fizzle out?
• 11:03
  Speaker 10: If there's complete information and so you know exactly how
• 11:08
  Speaker 10: cost the other side finds war to be and how
• 11:11
  Speaker 10: likely each side is to win. If you fight, then
• 11:14
  Speaker 10: there's really no opportunity to bluff, and there should be
• 11:19
  Speaker 10: no war because both sides know what would happen if
• 11:22
  Speaker 10: you did fight a war, and so if one side
• 11:26
  Speaker 10: is more powerful and they would win, then deterrence would
• 11:29
  Speaker 10: work perfectly, and deterrence would never fail and life would
• 11:34
  Speaker 10: be really simple.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: What McManus means is that if I'm rational and you
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: are rational, and I know your intentions and capability and
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: you know mine, then we're not going to go to war.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Neither of us can effectively blackmail each other or make
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: a threat or intimidate. Under the rational scenario, if you
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: say I'll nuke, if you cross that line, I'd just
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: roll my eyes and say, no, you won't You're not
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: blowing up the world because I crossed a line. But
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: what if you're just a little bit crazy? McManus is
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: one of a number of deterrence theorists who has thought
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: about this possible ability. By crazy, McManus doesn't mean completely psychotic.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: She just means somewhat irrational. What if you are possessed
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: of and this is the phrase she uses extreme preferences,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: That is that you really want certain things and are
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: willing to pay an insanely high price to get those
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: certain things. If you are a little bit crazy like that,
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: then I'm terrified because I really don't know whether you'd
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: risk millions of dead to get what you want. McManus
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: says this was exactly the situation before the Second World
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: War when the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain famously believed
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Hitler when Hitler said he wasn't out to wage a
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: total war.
• 12:51
  Speaker 11: I'm going to have another talk with hair Hitler, only
• 12:58
  Speaker 11: this time he has told me that it is his
• 13:02
  Speaker 11: intention to come halfway to meet me.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: So walk us through that scenario, that what happened there
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: and why that perception of Hitler allowed him to get
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: his way.
• 13:18
  Speaker 10: So he's negotiating with Chamberlain, who doesn't really want to
• 13:23
  Speaker 10: have another war, having just had World War One not
• 13:26
  Speaker 10: too long ago, and he tells Chamberlain, look, I'm a
• 13:30
  Speaker 10: German nationalist. The German people in the student land are suffering.
• 13:35
  Speaker 10: I want to unify all Germans. That's that's my mission
• 13:38
  Speaker 10: in life. And you know, I'll do anything to unify
• 13:42
  Speaker 10: all the Germans. But once I've unified all the Germans,
• 13:45
  Speaker 10: I'm going to stop, and that's going to be it,
• 13:47
  Speaker 10: and I'm going to be contented.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: So that's his extreme preference. He will do anything to
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: unify Germans. That's how he's presenting himself exactly.
• 13:56
  Speaker 10: Yeah, and it seems like Chamberlain believed that he believed
• 14:01
  Speaker 10: it at at least enough to give it a shot
• 14:04
  Speaker 10: and to make this deal with Hitler.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: In the world of deterrence, this is called the Madman theory.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: McManus argues that people in any conflict may have an
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: advantage if the other side perceives them as being just
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: a little bit but not entirely nuts. If you can
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: successfully convince your opponent that that is the way your
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: mind works, you can get your way in a negotiating
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: in a blackmailing or negotiating context in a way you
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: couldn't otherwise. That's your essential argument.
• 14:38
  Speaker 10: Yes, that's my argument. Now, I think it actually is
• 14:41
  Speaker 10: rather hard to create that perception. Hitler is really the
• 14:46
  Speaker 10: only successful example that I've come up with so far.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: Well, I want to give you another example, which is
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: why I called you. But it's not in your world.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: It's in a slightly different world. It's about deterrence, right,
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: This is where we get to the heart of it.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: Not deterrence among global superpowers bristling with weapons, No, the
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: kind of ordinary, low grade calculations we make every day
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: as a pedestrian. Why do I not just walk out
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: in front of other cars? I don't believe that they're
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: they might hit me because they're emotional or crazy or something.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: They have a series of, as you say, extreme what's
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: the phrase again, extreme preferences, extreme preferences. They might be
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: more interested in their text texts at there, at that
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: moment than me walking in front of them, right, And
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: so that's the reason most people don't jaywalk, right, because
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: there is that deterrence. Yes, Now, before we get back
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: to autonomous vehicles and the glorious morning, Jacob and I
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: spent riding way mows around the streets of Chandler, Arizona.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: I want to dwell on the issue of deterrence on
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: the streets because drivers are not rational. I think we
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: sometimes lose side of this fact. I thought professional cyclists,
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: of all people, would have the best perspective on the
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: inherent craziness of drivers. So I called up Lance Armstrong,
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: cyclist extraordinaire who has been actively sharing the road with
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: drivers for almost forty years.
• 16:27
  Speaker 8: Cars freaked me out. Being out on the road and
• 16:31
  Speaker 8: with cars and drivers and distracted drivers.
• 16:34
  Speaker 12: It scares the shit out of me.
• 16:37
  Speaker 8: Yeah, but you know, Malcolm, I actually now prefer the
• 16:42
  Speaker 8: mountain bike just so I can be.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: Totally away from cars.
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: And if I'm giving a choice on my road bike,
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: I'm going down a road and I see that there's
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: a bike path, even if there's people with baby strollers
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: and walkers and dogs.
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: I always take the bike path.
• 16:56
  Speaker 8: I just I don't want to have to think about,
• 16:59
  Speaker 8: you know, cars and people checking out their cell phone
• 17:02
  Speaker 8: or having a few cocktails. And they freaked me out.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: This is Lance Armstrong, a man so utterly and completely
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: badass that he would happily go out on a bike
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: for one hundred plus miles in the middle of the
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: southern French summer, riding it insane speeds up and down
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: massive mountains. I'm a runner. I think runners are the
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: greatest thing.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Ever.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: We're not as tough as cyclists, not even close. But
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: even Lance, badass Lance is so scared of drivers that
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: he would rather mountain bike or take the bike path
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: with the parents and the dogs. Have you ever been
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: hit by car?
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: Of course?
• 17:39
  Speaker 10: Oh?
• 17:40
  Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, many times?
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: How many times? How many times?
• 17:45
  Speaker 6: Oh?
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: I say many times?
• 17:46
  Speaker 12: I mean probably, look we're getting hit.
• 17:50
  Speaker 10: Once is too many.
• 17:52
  Speaker 8: I'd probably ride around five. The two worst ones was
• 17:58
  Speaker 8: when I was young, I ran a yellow light on
• 18:01
  Speaker 8: my bike and outside of a Dallas and suburbs where
• 18:04
  Speaker 8: I grew up, and I got to the intersection and
• 18:06
  Speaker 8: I turned yeall. I was like, I got this.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: Well, I made it five of the six lanes and
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: the six land lady was coming and just heading straight
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: from the sides and I was banged up, but okay.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Then there was a time he was bombing down some
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: empty French country road, hadn't seen a car in an hour? Well, shit,
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: sure enough, come around the corner and this old farmer
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: just coming the other way, and just I clipped right
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: the front and I cracked two vertebra.
• 18:30
  Speaker 12: You could be dead.
• 18:32
  Speaker 8: Well yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Of course. Next I called up Jonathan Voters, another former
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: professional cyclist. He and Lance were teammates at one point.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: I wanted to make sure Lance wasn't an exception. No
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Votters just as terrified.
• 18:51
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean. The first driver I fear the most
• 18:54
  Speaker 8: is just is you know, someone who's not paying attention
• 18:58
  Speaker 8: for whatever reason that is. They're reaching for a hamburger,
• 19:00
  Speaker 8: they're texting on their phone, they're arguing with their kids,
• 19:05
  Speaker 8: whatever it is. They're distracted, and they basically just sort
• 19:08
  Speaker 8: of weave into you. This is one reason that actually,
• 19:11
  Speaker 8: when I teach people how to ride in traffic, I
• 19:13
  Speaker 8: often teach them to ride actually further out. If you're
• 19:16
  Speaker 8: further out in the road, it actually forces you into
• 19:20
  Speaker 8: the line of vision of the driver. The second type
• 19:23
  Speaker 8: of driver that I fear is just angry. They don't
• 19:27
  Speaker 8: want you there as a cyclist. They feel that the
• 19:31
  Speaker 8: road is theirs and that you are impeding their progress
• 19:35
  Speaker 8: to getting to their destination, and they want to run
• 19:40
  Speaker 8: you over. And maybe they realize, oh, that there's you know,
• 19:45
  Speaker 8: there are consequences for me running over this cyclist, but
• 19:48
  Speaker 8: they're viewing you as essentially like subhuman.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: The willingness to risk killing a cyclist because they might
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: slow you down for a few seconds is, of course,
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: the textbook definition of an extreme preference.
• 19:59
  Speaker 8: There's a multi billion dollar industry, I should say, built
• 20:02
  Speaker 8: upon fear of traffic peloton swift. These are you know,
• 20:08
  Speaker 8: in home ding a bike and whatever, pieces of equipment, hardware, software,
• 20:13
  Speaker 8: that are entirely a result of people being afraid to
• 20:17
  Speaker 8: ride in traffic.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: To voters, riding a stationary bicycle makes no sense, I mean,
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: why would you do that? The whole point of riding
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: a bike is the thrill of movement, the wind in
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: your hair, the adventure of going somewhere. But millions of
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Americans only feel truly safe peddling in their basements.
• 20:35
  Speaker 8: To me, the only possible explanation for that, well, they're
• 20:38
  Speaker 8: two possible explanations, that society as a whole have gone insane.
• 20:41
  Speaker 12: Or that people are just you know, that they're afraid
• 20:45
  Speaker 12: of traffic and afraid of cars, which quite logically, you know,
• 20:49
  Speaker 12: makes sense that they would.
• 20:51
  Speaker 8: Yeah, so I don't think We've gone insane.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: Yet there is a reason why when you drive down
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: the street, cyclists and runners and pedestrians aren't inundating you, competing.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: For the road.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: They're afraid of you. You and why are they afraid?
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Because you're nuts? And in any confrontation that madman has
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: the upper hand. All drivers are nuts, with one exception.
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: Weimo.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Weymo doesn't have emotions. Weymo doesn't text. Weymo doesn't eat
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: a burger and drive with his knees. Weimo doesn't get
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: angry if you behave like an idiot. Weimo doesn't give
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: you the finger. Waymo doesn't do road rage. Weimo wants
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: to live and let live. Weimo is your grandmother, only
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: with lightning reflexes and perfect vision to three hundred yards.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: In a world of Weimo's, cars aren't the mad men anymore.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: But if cars aren't the madmen, guess who.
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: Gets to be crazy.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: The answer is obvious, my friends, we do. I will
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: admit that I was slow to grasp the actual implicatations
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: of autonomous driving. I'd been too busy watching all those
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: ted talks where the Silicon Valley types explain the self
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: driving tech utopia, where everyone behaves with the unruffled rationality
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: of an engineering major at Stanford University. But one day
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: I stumbled upon a brilliant essay by an economist named
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: Adam Millard Ball. His paper reads like the academic version
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: of the Hans Christian Anderson story The Emperor's New Clothes.
• 22:40
  Speaker 9: This was framed as a technological problem. It was framed
• 22:45
  Speaker 9: as a space where we just need to figure out
• 22:48
  Speaker 9: the right programming another technological solutions.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: To Millard Ball, the issue with autonomous vehicles was people,
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: specifically the people outside the vehicle.
• 23:00
  Speaker 9: So if you're a pedestrian and you have that confidence
• 23:03
  Speaker 9: that the autonomous vehicle is going to stop and yeel
• 23:06
  Speaker 9: to you as legally it should, then there's nothing to
• 23:10
  Speaker 9: stop you from taking that right of way.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Pedestrians and drivers now engage in a dangerous game of chicken,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: each daring the other to do something stupid. But if
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: weamo takes over the rules of that game change.
• 23:23
  Speaker 9: If you know that the other player is much more
• 23:26
  Speaker 9: cautious and it's likely to follow the rules, then you're
• 23:30
  Speaker 9: going to win. When you're playing check in, it helps
• 23:33
  Speaker 9: to be the most crazy player in the game.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the roles have reversed in a certain way
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: that it used to be. The thing that puts fear
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: into your heart as a pedestrian is the unknown preferences
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: and the unpredictability of the driver. But now we've flipped it.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: The driver has become the car has become entirely sane
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: and rational. It's preferences right, and that allows you to
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: be unpredictable as the pedestrian.
• 24:03
  Speaker 9: Absolutely, and it gives you an incentive to be seen
• 24:06
  Speaker 9: to be unpredictable.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: With that line, hold on, explain that why does it
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: give you an incentive to be seen as unpredictable.
• 24:14
  Speaker 9: The more unpredictable you seem, so the more you could
• 24:18
  Speaker 9: behave like you're intoxicated or distracted. Then be its equivalent
• 24:24
  Speaker 9: of being a five year old child on the street.
• 24:27
  Speaker 9: The autonomous circle is likely to recognize that unpredictability and
• 24:32
  Speaker 9: be more cautious.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: Accordingly, Oh, I see, it's in my interest to be
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: as flagrant in my unpredictability as possible, because I don't
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: want to be so subtle that the car doesn't pick
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: it up. I want to make sure that if I'm
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: going to transgress the rules of the road, I should
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: do so as flagrantly and flamboyantly as I can.
• 24:53
  Speaker 9: You need to be obvious about it. Absolutely.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: If we imagine we wave a wand and we say
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: tomorrow every car in New York City or London will
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: be autonomous, doesn't that mean that we have immediate gridlock,
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: or at least once pedestrians catch on to their newfound power.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: How on earth do cars move around a city.
• 25:13
  Speaker 9: That's a great question, and I'm not sure that they do.
• 25:16
  Speaker 9: And I'm not sure either that that's a completely bad outcome.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Not a completely bad outcome, it's a fantastic outcome. The
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: experts have thrown in the towel, given up on rational
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: city streets, where algorithms and sensors and light our create
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: perfect order out of disorder. No, they're saying the future
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: is mayhem, and I'm not sure that's a completely bad outcome.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: Kids can play stickball on the streets of New York
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: City again like they did in the nineteen twenties. Cyclists
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: can ride in packs down the middle of the interstate.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: You spot a friend on the other side of the street,
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: and you shout out hey, and you impulsively run across
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: the street, across multiple lanes of traffic, and you give them.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: A big hug.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: My Running Club meets on a crowded track on the
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: lower east side of Manhattan, where speedy runners compete with
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: arrant soccer balls and children running free and old folks
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: out for a ramble. Fifty yards away is the FDR
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: drive wide undulating ribbons of smooth, inviting blacktop. In the
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: autonomous future, we are totally going to do our workouts
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: on the FDR hat rush hour, A hundred of us
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: and the way moos will sit patiently until we finish.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Do you understand how awesome the future is?
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: We get the streets back, we are arrived.
• 26:56
  Speaker 6: Please check your surroundings for exiting the vehicle, and remember
• 27:00
  Speaker 6: to go through these after exis.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: Back in Tempe, Arizona, Jacob and I are wandering the
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: parking lot of the Alamo Draft House them a deep
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: in conversation. We're not here for a movie. We're here
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: to test out our newly realized power as pedestrians. And
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: first thing we do we call another Weymo.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: When Weymo pulls up is try and spook him with
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: beach ball. Okay, a beach ball.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Jacob has one folded up in his bag. We quickly inflated,
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: but I could start coming.
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: Three comes, all right, bring it, bring here, okay, way
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: most coming.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: We get inside the Weimo. Jacob stays outside holding the
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: beach ball. Let's see how Wimo responds to a beach
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: ball's throne, because it's known in the literature.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: As the beach ball test.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: And I'm gonna should I do a gentle role? What
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: should I just float it up in front?
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Or should be like hold on? Okay, okay.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Jacob doesn't hurl the beach ball at Weymo. He gently
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: floats it in the direction of Weimo. An errant beach
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: ball that retaels from maybe four.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: Beach ball thrown, and it stopped short. I might have
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: broken Welcome's neck that.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: Time Weimo slammed on his brakes slammed.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: I was a little worried about you. It stoped so
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: short that tests stopped about as hard as you know,
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: which makes me wonder, like will it stop her?
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: Birds?
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: Stop this thing? Like this is not the biggest beach
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: ball in the world. That was fourteen inch beach ball.
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: That was super impressive.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it wasn't a threatening beach ball.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: It's a beach ball thrown with love not anger.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: Floated out's right like gently lofted and it.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Weimo was like, this is not happening on my watch.
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: I'm stopping this right now.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Weimo was not going to harm a hair on the
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: head of that beach ball. The beach ball test left
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: us drunk with power, so I said to Jacob, I'm
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: going for a run. Jacob, what the first thing is
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna do is I'm gonna try and outrun the
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: way Mo, and then I'm gonna cut in front.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: We're gonna see what happens.
• 29:11
  Speaker 6: Please make sure your seatbelt.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: Jacob gets in the Weymo in order to monitor Weamo's movements.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: I do a few warm up stretches. I'm gonna run beside.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna run in front of the Waymo and see
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: what happens.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go. Way Mo's moving way most moving. Wait,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: where's he going?
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: Come on, we moo, come on, we moo stopping starting
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: He's I think I'm making him nervous.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Come on, wey Mo, come on.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: Wait minutesn't know what I'm doing, and now he won't move.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: This is actually Waimo is the most gracious. Oh he's
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: taken Wo's gone the other direction, now running alongside Weymouth
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: way more stopped.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: I'm making way more nervous. Let's go Waymo, Let's go,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: let's go, let's go.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: I'm out running Waymouth Cutmo, way moos come to us.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Stop now Wemo is trying to get around me. Let's see.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: This is exhausting. Let's go way more stopping again. I'm
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: gonna let him.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: Whom doesn't know what he's doing. Actually, woman knows what
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: he's doing. He doesn't know what I'm doing when m's
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: going the other direction. Now he thinks he's gotten away
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: from me.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: Not so fast, my friend.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Wee must don't come back to a stop. I'm messing
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: with Wimo's head cutting in front of weymou. Wait what
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: is Waymo want to do here? I wonder if w
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: was angry at me?
• 30:49
  Speaker 13: Now he's taking off. Oh he comes through hall Waymo
• 30:55
  Speaker 13: is freaked out, freaked out. He thinks he's going. He's
• 31:00
  Speaker 13: got ahead of me. I'm gonna catch him.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Wait, how dud you let me get in Waimo stop.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Weimo was the perfect gentleman. He let me be the
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: crazy one.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Remember this the next time.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Some Silicon Valley Visionary promises you a future of perfect mobility,
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: efficiency and clarity from the backseat of an autonomous vehicle. No, no, no,
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: it's much better than that. It's me and Lance and
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: Jonathan Vaughters and Jacob with his beach ball taking back
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: the road.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: I love you, WEIMO.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Revisious History is produced by me LaBelle Lehman Gesteu and
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: Jacob Smith with Eloise Linton and on an Eye. Our
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: editor is Julia Barton. Original scoring by Luis Kerra, mastering
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: by Fln Williams, and engineering by Martin Gonzalez. Fact checking
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: by Amy Gaines. Special thanks to the Pushkin crew had
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: a fine Carly MCGLIORI, Maya Canig, Maggie Taylor, Eric Sandler,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Nicole Morano, Jason Gambrel and of course Jacob Eisberg.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: I'm Malcolm Babba.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: Don't forget my latest book, The Bomber Mafia, which is
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: an expansion of several episodes from the last season of
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: Revisionist History. You can find it wherever books are sold,
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: but by the audiobook at Bombermafia dot com and you'll
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: get a bonus listener's guide and you can listen in
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: the podcast app you're using now.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: Awesome. We got our first response to the tree.
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: This will all end in tears.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Oh yes it will. It will, but not the only.
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: Things to many DiscT we get one in the bad.
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: Don't take something you see a brick weekend, but you.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: Spent will be like to see.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's perfect. Ghost Ride the whip ghost ride,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: the whip Joys. Happy, thank you, walliemam