I'd appreciate if they were open and honest about the reality of how they operate. But since they keep it very secret, I have no choice but to assume the worst. If it was impressive rathee than detrimental to their valuation, they'd be open about it.
"the autonomous driver can reach out to a human fleet response agent for additional information to contextualize its environment. The Waymo Driver does not rely solely on the inputs it receives from the fleet response agent and it is in control of the vehicle at all times. As the Waymo Driver waits for input from fleet response, and even after receiving it, the Waymo Driver continues using available information to inform its decisions. This is important because, given the dynamic conditions on the road, the environment around the car can change, which either remedies the situation or influences how the Waymo Driver should proceed. In fact, the vast majority of such situations are resolved, without assistance, by the Waymo Driver."
But let's assume they're lying and you're right: what kind of throughput and latency do you expect to be required between the car and the remote driver for this to work safely? How does the car know if the remote driver is actually looking at the data and acting on that? What happens if the connection stutters? Does the car take control again? How would it decide when to alternate between remote and local control? What if the two sides disagree on what to do?
One blog post lacking in any detail is not being open about how it works, and I think you know that. I was very clear in the kinds of detail I think they should legally be required to provide to operate on public roads.
I don't know that. You asked for numbers on how many supervisors per car are needed (I bet it's around 1:100, probably less) and how often they intervene (a few times a day at most? Otherwise you'd read articles about cars being stuck all the time). If you knew the actual numbers, you still wouldn't know HOW it works. The post does shed light on the actual workflow and gives you important details that you wouldn't glean from the numbers alone, e.g. that the car is always the one in control.
