The Trial of the Driverless Car

Summary

Search Engine: "The Trial of the Driverless Car"

Host: PJ Vogt
Date: March 26, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this thought-provoking episode, PJ Vogt dives deep into the collision between technological progress and the livelihoods of working people. "The Trial of the Driverless Car" examines Boston’s political and social battle over the arrival of Waymo’s autonomous vehicles. Through interviews with drivers, politicians, union leaders, and accessibility advocates, the episode probes a central question: What are we willing to sacrifice—or demand—in the name of innovation, safety, and progress?

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Evolution of Driving Work in Boston

• Abdiaziz’s Story:

  • A veteran Boston driver reflects on 30+ years in the business, from cabs to limos to the early days of Uber.
  • Abdiaziz quickly recognized Uber would destroy the medallion system and destabilize traditional driving jobs.
  • Quote:

    "You didn't come here to help us. You come here to kill this business." – Abdiaziz, on Uber's arrival (03:35)

  • When unable to stop Uber, Abdiaziz joined them, distributing phones and helping recruit drivers.

• Shift in Uber’s Pay Model:

  • Early days were lucrative for drivers, but over time, Uber moved to variable algorithmic pay, reducing transparency and trust (06:44).
  • Abdiaziz and others began organizing for union representation—a move prompted by declining wages and job security.

2. The New Threat: Waymo and Automation

• Waymo’s Entrance:

  • As drivers organized, Waymo began mapping Boston—the first step to introducing autonomous taxis.
  • Many saw this as an existential threat:

    "When Uber came, their aim was to kill taxi business. Now Waymo is to kill the drivers." – Abdiaziz (09:48)

• Boston’s Union Identity:

  • The city’s politicians and union leaders repeatedly emphasized, "Boston is a union town" (15:35).
  • Union members expressed concerns Waymo could erase thousands of working-class jobs.
  • Emotional testimonies highlighted the value of human drivers—not just as workers, but as caretakers and first responders (16:05).

3. Political and Community Response

• City Council Hearings:

  • Hearings on autonomous vehicles quickly became proxy battlegrounds for broader anxieties: job loss, accountability, and the future of work.
  • City Councilor Julia Mejia emerged as a vocal skeptic, centering the conversation on low-wage workers.

    "What we are doing is creating financial hardships for people who are already struggling." – Julia Mejia (24:16)

• Union & Politician Testimony:

  • Leaders criticized Waymo for failing to communicate and engage with workers before rolling out (17:27).
  • Political lines were clear—Boston would fight for its drivers, even if other cities embraced automation.

• Waymo’s Position:

  • Matt Walsh, Waymo’s policy head, focused on safety statistics:

    “We know that we are five times less in injury-causing crashes than human drivers.” – Matt Walsh (19:18)

  • He struggled to offer any vision for displaced drivers beyond abstract "workforce development" in the new industry (25:05).

4. Disability Community’s Perspective

• Carl Richardson’s Testimony:

  • Carl, a blind and hearing-impaired Bostonian, emphasized that reliable, accessible transportation could dramatically improve the lives and employment prospects of disabled people.
  • He recounted discrimination routinely faced while using Uber/Lyft and described the emotional toll of losing the ability to drive.
  • Quote:

    "I want that feeling that I used to have when I drove of freedom and independence and mobility. I know what I've lost, you know, and I want that back." – Carl Richardson (41:34)

• Political Reception:

  • Richardson's testimony was nearly sidelined; few politicians heard him in person as most had left to attend a union event. (45:41)

• Mobilizing the Disability Community:

  • For the second hearing, Carl helped organize a coalition of disabled advocates, shifting the tenor of the debate to include accessibility and independence.

5. Confrontation and Compromise: The Second Hearing

• A More Structured Hearing:

  • The follow-up hearing featured stricter moderation and a more balanced array of speakers (47:04).
  • Disability advocates argued impassionedly for the benefits of autonomous vehicles.

• Union Skepticism:

  • Some union supporters and politicians saw the alignment between Waymo and disability advocates as orchestrated, raising questions over authenticity.

    "I do believe that they are utilizing the disability community to their advantage. And you don't do that to people." – Julia Mejia (52:01)

• Advocates' Response:

  • Carl Richardson pushed back, asserting his agency:

    “You can't take advantage of me unless I want to be… I know what I’m getting into... If it means my mobility, my freedom and my independence.” (52:49)

• Policy Process Stalls:

  • The council delayed a vote on the effective ban, now realizing the political risk of sidelining disability voices. The issue appeared to be heading to the state legislature.

6. Wider Implications and the Search for Middle Ground

• The Looming Future:

  • PJ Vogt highlights how each stakeholder is fighting for a different imagined future—one of control, autonomy, dignity, or unfettered progress.

• Safety vs. Jobs:

  • The debate sidestepped core trade-offs—neither side fully engaging with the hardest truths: job loss for drivers versus thousands of lives potentially saved or enhanced.

• What Would a Compromise Look Like?

  • Vogt references labor history, suggesting creative solutions such as funds for displaced workers, early retirement buyouts, or new job guarantees. However, no such solution is yet in sight.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On losing livelihoods to technology:

  “When Uber came, their aim was to kill taxi business. Now Waymo is to kill the drivers.”
  – Abdiaziz (09:48)

• On Work and Dignity:

  "To me, a person. To Waymo, an obstacle to avoid."
  – Union Driver/Testifier (16:05)

• On the future of driving, safety, and autonomy:

  “I want that back. And I never thought I’d get it back. But I now believe someday, within my lifetime, we might have to convince the politicians you don’t need to have eyesight to be able to have the ability to drive an autonomous vehicle.”
  – Carl Richardson (43:00)

• On Moral Responsibility:

  "We are just not the type of city that just goes along to get along with certain things that we feel... Boston is a union town. We're hardcore."
  – Julia Mejia (20:46, 20:55)

• On the complexity of public testimony:

  “Everybody has their own individual agency and they were here on their own accord.”
  – City Councilor Gabriela Colette Zapata (58:20)

• On the need for multi-sided, challenging policy debates:

  "It behooves us as legislators… to challenge not just these major corporations, but challenge labor unions and to challenge advocacy organizations and to try not to get motivated by our passions."
  – Gabriela Colette Zapata (61:17)

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Key Timestamps

• 02:32: Introduction to Abdiaziz, Boston driver’s perspective on Uber’s impact
• 05:35: Abdiaziz’s decision to work for Uber, recruiting new drivers
• 08:29: Emergence of unionization among app drivers
• 09:34: First mention of Waymo and driver concerns about automation
• 13:14–16:05: Boston’s union culture and emotional defense of driving work
• 19:18: Waymo’s safety argument, lack of jobs plan
• 24:33: Julia Mejia presses Waymo on moral and economic consequences
• 34:16: Host and producer embedded in Boston, hearing drivers’ views
• 39:02: Carl Richardson’s testimony on accessibility and driverless cars
• 43:00: Carl’s loss of driving and hope for independence restored
• 47:04: Second hearing—balanced testimony, disability advocates take stage
• 49:55: Perceived "seismic shift" in the debate with disability presence
• 52:49: Debate over whether advocates are being used, agency asserted
• 58:20: Councilor Zapata affirming advocates’ agency
• 61:17: Emphasis on challenging all sides to find real solutions
• 63:49: Futurist perspective—how driverless cars may reshape norms
• 66:39–68:40: Episode credits and acknowledgements

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Concluding Thoughts

"The Trial of the Driverless Car" is less about Waymo specifically and more about how society negotiates the arrival of disruptive technology. In Boston, a city with a proud labor history and deep community ties, the debate over automation becomes a trial not just of robots, but of political will, empathy, and imagination. As PJ Vogt observes, a true solution is likely to require more than saying "no"—it will need creative compromises that reckon honestly with both what will be lost and what might be gained.

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For listeners seeking an intelligent, nuanced window into one of the most pressing questions of our time—the balance between progress and protection—this episode is a must-hear.

Transcript

[PJ Vogt]

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[Narrator / Host]

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[PJ Vogt]

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[PJ Vogt]

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[PJ Vogt]

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[Narrator / Host]

Our first story was about a driver, a robot driver who evolved over many years at the nudging and training and machinations of a team of tech people in California. The second story I want to tell you also starts with the driver. A driver who is also going to evolve and change due to the machinations of some different west coast tech companies. The difference is that this driver is a human being Chapter one. Abdiaziz. I met Abdi Aziz in Boston where he's been a driver for many decades. He was doing it all the way back in the 90s. Back then he considered taxi driver to be a decent job, a career professionally.

[Abdiaziz]

I've been driving for 30 years now.

[Narrator / Host]

30 years?

[Abdiaziz]

Yes. I had a limo service for 10 years and then I was doing five years for a cab, a taxi.

[Narrator / Host]

And then one day in 2011, Abdiaziz was hanging out at the airport with the other drivers when these men from the future showed up with a plan to change his life.

[Abdiaziz]

When Uber came, I remember by 2011 they came to the airport. We were in the waiting area at the Logan. We have a designated parking lot where we weigh the fares. So they come there and they say, hey, you know, we are introducing you in a company that will do same as a taxi, but it's an app. We want you guys to join with us and you know, you can have your own car. We will give you a phone with the app and we can sign you up and you can make money. What did you think at the time? I say it is good, but you didn't come here to help us. You come here to kill this business. Okay, you knew. I knew.

[Narrator / Host]

Abdiaziz had not been born yesterday. Here's what he understood immediately. The taxi business he operated in up until now had worked as a kind of monopoly in Boston. Like many American cities, you legally were not allowed to drive a cab without a taxi license, a medallion. New medallions were almost never issued. So assuming you could afford to buy or rent a medallion, the city itself would make your job stable by protecting you from competition. But Uber was about to kill that system. Uber drivers just drove without medallions. The company argued that since they were picking up passengers via this newfangled phone app, they didn't need them. Abdaziz knew that this was going to kill the industry, at least as it currently existed. Taxi driver would still be a job, but medallion owning taxi driver would not be. A wave was coming. He knew what he had to do. And so he told his fellow taxi drivers, he his strategy for dealing with Uber, the company that had come to kill their industry.

[Abdiaziz]

I told them, listen, I'm going to join them. I said, I see where they're going. I read a lot of articles about them. They start from San Francisco, they went to Chicago. I say they are expanding. So we can't stop this. We cannot stop Uber.

[Narrator / Host]

So Abdyaziz found himself working for Uber. He says someone at the company Handed him his new marching orders.

[Abdiaziz]

We're going to give you a laptop. We're going to give you 200 phones each week. So we want you to give these phones to the drivers that you hire, but we want you to set it up. They need to bring their driver license, they need to bring their Social Security, and you sign them up. Everyone that you sign, you give the phone, you activate the phone, they're good to go.

[Narrator / Host]

So they were giving you 200 iPhones a week to give out.

[Abdiaziz]

To give out? Yeah, to the drivers.

[Narrator / Host]

So it's crazy. It's like they're kind of. They're coming to kill your business. Exactly.

[Abdiaziz]

I knew, I knew, I knew. But that's why I say if you cannot beat them, joy in them, you know? So I'm going to join them.

[Narrator / Host]

Abdia Aziz, a man who could glimpse the future clearly enough to adapt to it. He'd worked recruiting for Uber for a while. Then he'd be one of the first hundred Uber drivers in Boston. Signed up for Uber Black, the premium service. Got himself a very expensive car. At first, it was an even better job than the one they destroyed. Uber in those early days was pretty generous. But after a few years, Abdaziz says, that started to change. In 2022, Uber began rolling out a big change to its platform. Instead of taking a set percentage of each fare, Uber started using an algorithm to offer its drivers variable rates based on what its system thought each driver would accept for a given ride. The drivers believe that Uber, once it stopped showing them its take, raised that take by a lot. Uber, who we contacted for the story, maintains that their take rate is still, quote, around 20% and that what's gone up actually are government taxes and fees. But Abdiaziz does not believe them, and most drivers I've talked to share his view. Abdieziz's perspective is that once Uber and Lyft had leverage, they started using it against the drivers. The market was wide open. New drivers signed up every day. If you didn't like it, you could leave. To Abdaziz and his fellow drivers, this all felt like a bait and switch. They could quit, but many of them had car loans. What they actually wanted was for the companies to raise their pay closer to what it had been before. They wanted better pay. They wanted some other concessions. Some of the drivers started thinking about whether there might be some way to exercise power over the apps. They started talking about a union. And so Abdiaziz found himself once again a recruiter for a disruptive new organization.

[Abdiaziz]

So when we started, we were like 400 drivers, and we joined the union.

[Narrator / Host]

So you were early. You were early on Uber. You were early in the union.

[Abdiaziz]

Exactly, exactly, exactly. Because I've been in the industry for quite a while, 30 years, I know what is going on. It's my profession. And the union, they say, okay, call all the drivers, let us unite, and then we're going to go to the state.

[Narrator / Host]

Did it feel a little bit like when Uber was having you sign people up and then the union's having you sign people up? Did it feel similar, like going around explaining something to people, telling them what the benefits?

[Abdiaziz]

Absolutely, Absolutely. Exactly. Because you see a lot of drivers, they don't know nothing about union.

[Narrator / Host]

Things were looking promising. They got a big ballot initiative in front of Massachusetts voters that gave them the right to even try to unionize. They were collecting signatures. But then, during this still fledgling moment in their union drive, a different tech company appeared on the horizon. Do you remember the first time you heard about Waymo?

[Abdiaziz]

The Waymo? The first time I heard was back in 2022. I heard in San Francisco that they are doing testing.

[Narrator / Host]

What did you think?

[Abdiaziz]

I said, okay, I mean, I'm not against technology, you know, I welcome any technology, same as Uber, when they come to business. But I knew where they're heading to, you know, See, when Uber came, their aim was to kill taxi business. Now Waymo is to kill the drivers.

[Narrator / Host]

How you understand a story, what you feel as you hear it, it's so much about where the teller chooses to start it. The driverless car in the story I'd heard had begun as a contest among academics who were not primarily driven by profit. Some of them had genuinely wanted to solve the problem of car accidents. Others thought that making a robot drive across a desert was just a very cool puzzle to put their minds to. Those experiments had been sharpened into a technological product inside the cushy bubble of an enormously wealthy tech company, who now had sent mapping cars to Abdieziz's city, the first step to deployment there. When Uber had come to town, Abdyaziz had thought, if you can't beat him, join him. Now Waymo was here, and he saw no way to join them. So he had to find a way to beat them. Fortunately for Abdieaziz, he's in Boston.

[Sharon Durkin]

My name is Sharon Durkin, District 8 city councilor, and I'm the chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Planning, Development and Transportation, Chapter 2, Uniontown.

[Narrator / Host]

Boston City councilors began meeting last summer to discuss preemptively banning Waymo from their city. The first meeting took place in July inside Boston City Hall, a room resplendent in many hues of municipal brown. The stated agenda for the hearing, docket 1141, sounded neutral to the point of boring. Order for a hearing to evaluate autonomous vehicle operations in the city of Boston today.

[Sharon Durkin]

The goals for today's hearing is to gather information, hear from stakeholders, and better understand the regulatory landscape we must explore.

[Narrator / Host]

Despite this very dry description, what was actually going to happen would be significantly more raucous. These hearings started out with the flavor and intensity of a political rally. People wanted to find a way to stop these cars and this would be the room where they laid out the case as to why it'd be the beginning of the fight. Some version of this fight has been happening with increasing frequency in American cities. Not all cities, blue cities. There's this pattern actually observed by reporter Timothy Beeley, which is that cities in red and purple states like Austin and Phoenix mostly welcome Waymo, Whereas places like D.C. and New York fight it. In cities that fight Waymo, the conversation is less about safety and much more about whether Robo taxis will take away jobs. My hope was if I paid attention to Boston, maybe what was beginning here as just a fight would evolve into politicians starting to think through some kind of compromise. I think these kinds of compromises, finding solutions for workers who AI could displace they are probably one of the most important challenges for our politicians today. And so Boston for me was a test case. Are we capable? Were our politics ready? So here's how things began. Bostonians were here today to talk about something. Jobs. But they started with the one thing everybody could probably agree on. Boston's streets, the battleground here were barely fit for human driving, let alone Waymo.

[Union Driver / Testifier]

Boston is one of the oldest major cities in the country with narrow one way streets, alleys and the lack of a traditional grid system.

[Gabriela Colette Zapata]

It's really, really difficult to drive.

[Julia Mejia]

You look at the map, it looks

[PJ Vogt]

like a child's drawing.

[Union Driver / Testifier]

You know, we also have issues with double parked cars, rideshares, delivery vehicles.

[Narrator / Host]

After lambasting Boston streets a while longer, the people here get to the issue that'll actually dominate these hearings. Jobs. In particular, union jobs.

[Union Driver / Testifier]

We need to address potential layoffs for our union drivers with the introduction of self driving cars.

[Narrator / Host]

I think it's important, important that, you know, we listen when we hear teamsters in the Carmen union, SEIU and countless

[Emily Maltaire]

residents who feel blindsided by this.

[Narrator / Host]

The app drivers union, Abdi Aziza's union were the stars of the hearing today.

[Carl Richardson]

I'm a proud member of ADU App Drivers Union, and I'm here to ask

[Teamsters Representative]

you to protect our local jobs.

[Narrator / Host]

Rideshare drivers just won the right to

[Matt Walsh]

unionize and to fight for better wages and conditions.

[Sharon Durkin]

Robot cars threaten all of this progress.

[Narrator / Host]

Abdi Aziz would show up too, at a later hearing.

[Abdiaziz]

I understand it is a business, it is capitalism, but not in my city at the expense of our jobs. Thank you.

[Narrator / Host]

The App Drivers were not officially a union yet. Technically, they were still in the process of forming. But the threat from Waymo seemed so dire that this larger coalition had been created that included a bunch of historic unions. It was called Labor United Against Waymo. Every driver's union in Boston uniting to try to kill Waymo. Here at the tip of the spear, the Teamsters. Nationally, Teamsters are the largest union of drivers in America. 1.4 million members. Boston's one of their biggest strongholds. This is the union that started out as workers driving teams of horses, but evolved to represent workers who drive cars and trucks, and these days, represents lots and lots of blue collar union jobs. Boston's a union town. Everybody said this to me over and over in the same quick, matter of fact way that people where I'm from say New York's expensive. The way you toss off a truth so obvious it's barely worth repeating, but which you have to repeat all the time because it informs everything. Always the Teamsters and the politicians just kept repeating it. Boston's a union town.

[Teamsters Representative]

Boston is a union town. And you hear the Waymo is our city.

[Narrator / Host]

We're a proud union city. We're proud of our workers. We're proud of.

[Sharon Durkin]

Boston is a union town. We're not any of those other cities.

[Carl Richardson]

So we're a union city here in

[Narrator / Host]

the city of Boston we want to protect. And watching the hearings, I could see part of what was so beautiful about Boston being a union town as driver after driver testified about their jobs. There's just something moving to me anyway, about watching people talk about the dignity and importance of human work.

[Union Driver / Testifier]

A few days ago, while on my route, I spotted a man collapsed on the ground. He was unconscious and unresponsive, and it became clear that he had overdosed. I stayed with him, flagged down a homeowner who called 911. When the first responder arrived, they administered Narcan. Had I not seen him and acted quickly, he may have died. To me, a person to Waymu, an obstacle to avoid.

[Narrator / Host]

You had union members who drove UPS trucks, ambulances, and while these Teamsters were not immediately under threat from Waymo's Robo taxi service. They knew that driverless technology was not going to stop there.

[Teamsters Representative]

We see the writing on the wall. We know that driverless car and truck companies are salivating at the idea that they could eliminate Teamster jobs.

[Narrator / Host]

Nationally, the Teamsters actually sat out the last presidential race. But in Boston, the Teamsters are still welded to the Democrats, and the Democrats are welded to them. Just a few months ago, I was knocking doors with drivers across the city to give them the right to organize. You guys just were able to unionize

[PJ Vogt]

and this would just be a huge

[Narrator / Host]

blow to you all. As the city councilors began to ask union leaders questions, you got the sense that councilors already knew some of these answers, that maybe they were asking more just to get the answers on the public record.

[Julia Mejia]

And I'm just curious, can you talk to us a little bit about the number of conversations that you've had with Waymo? How many times did you meet with them?

[Narrator / Host]

This is City Councilor Julia Mejia asking one of the Teamsters leaders, how many times did Waymo reach out to you before they sent mapping cars to Boston?

[Teamsters Representative]

Very quick, thank you for the question, Councilor Mejia. It rhymes with hero.

[Julia Mejia]

0.

[Teamsters Representative]

0.

[Julia Mejia]

So this is, this is why I asked the question. Because oftentimes things are being done to us without us, right? And so chapter three. Curious. What? Words of advice, Counselor Mejia, now that you have the mic.

[Narrator / Host]

The counselor had arrived an hour late to the hearing. A former MTV reporter, she's noticeably hipper than the median municipal politician. Standing out in the beige sea of the city council room. She'd come to listen to the heroes, the drivers. But more than that, she'd come to make a meal out of the people she saw as the villains, Waymo's executives.

[Julia Mejia]

If, if we're competing with machines, it will ultimately have an impact on our drivers.

[Matt Walsh]

At this point, given the sense the sale, the scale of our fleet compared to Uber and Lyft, I can't speak to what the decrease in their revenue has been. I don't know those numbers.

[Narrator / Host]

I can tell you the person on the receiving end of these questions is Matt Walsh, Waymo's regional head of state and local public policy. Walsh looks the part of the tech exec. A spiffy suit, a swoopy coif of silver hair. For most of their conversation, they're talking past each other because Matt Walsh wants to discuss safety and Councillor Mejia wants to discuss drivers jobs.

[Julia Mejia]

What we are doing is creating an opportunity for People to choose to not support humans and the workforce. That is the choice that we're giving people.

[Matt Walsh]

I would disagree, counselor. I would say the choice we're giving people is they can make a decision if they want to be in a safer vehicle that they feel safer in and that meets the needs.

[Julia Mejia]

And so are we saying that our Uber and Lyft drivers and our app drivers are not safe?

[Matt Walsh]

I am not making comments specifically about the safety of urban Lyft. What I can say is that after 71 million miles of fully autonomous operations on US roads, we know that we are five times less in injury causing crashes than human drivers. I am not suggesting that Uber and Lyft drivers are dangerous. I am suggesting that human drivers compared to the Waymo driver are involved in.

[Julia Mejia]

But Waymo is not a driver. Waymo is a robot. So let's, let's, let's, let's.

[Matt Walsh]

You're totally correct.

[Julia Mejia]

Really clear about what it is. It's an apparatus.

[Matt Walsh]

We refer when we say Waymo driver. I know the chair brought this up earlier. We. That is the. What we call the way. That is what we call the technology. And I understand it has sensitivities and very triggering. Understood and heard loud and clear.

[Julia Mejia]

Want to make sure that we're not driving. That's not happening. So right now in supermarkets they do these self.

So Boston is like a little character, you know, I think that people. It could have been, you know, CEOs versus bees. Boston would just be like, we're on the B side, you know, like we're gonna go hard for honey, you know, like we're crazy like that.

[Narrator / Host]

I got to talk to Councillor Mejia, the politician who'd been so offended by Waymo's use of the D word. We met in person in her office in Dorchester. The counselor was giving me and producer Emily Moltair a quick lesson on Boston, this foreign country where I'd happily landed.

[Julia Mejia]

We are just not the type of city that just goes along to get along with certain things that we feel especially like Boston is a union town.

We're hardcore.

We don't. We're adverse to outsiders.

It's a city, but it's like a

little old town, you know, it's like very towny here.

[Narrator / Host]

Well, this gets to what I want to ask you about, which is Waymo, like, when do you recall the first time Waymo, even as a concept, showed up on your radar?

[Julia Mejia]

Yeah, right before the hearing.

[Narrator / Host]

Oh, right before.

[Julia Mejia]

Like, I didn't know. Like, first of all, I'm not one of those People, I don't pay attention to everything. I'm not gonna, you know, like, I have my own little bubble here. You know, I'm dealing with education issues, potholes, like murder, you know, like real life issues that impact the quality of life of my constituents. And so it wasn't until recently when there was some rumblings of Waymo wanting to set up shop here in Boston, that I had learned that they were in other cities. I was like, damn, there are people who like this. Like, I got in a way more car, like, all excited about them, like, wow, people like this. So I was.

[Narrator / Host]

You start searching about it because you're curious, and then the algorithm starts being like, just videos of like happy people in driverless cars.

[Julia Mejia]

I'm like, oh, wow. Like, who are these people really excited getting driven around by a robot or just not even a robot. Some of these don't even have a little head. They're just like, yeah, it's just a steering wheel. Yeah, that's even creepier. So that was like, ew. Yeah. No.

[Narrator / Host]

I've talked to a few people who feel this way when they see videos of Waymos. Part of this is a quirk of design. There are other models of driverless cars that were fully designed to be driverless, like Amazon Zoox. Those cars don't have a steering wheel, but Waymo retrofits pre existing Jaguar SUVs. And so when you get in one, there's still a steering wheel as a passenger. You watch it turn itself as if guided by an invisible pair of hands. Watching that wheel turn, some people feel wonder, like they're seeing the work of a very impressive engineer. Others feel outrage, like they're watching the space where a human used to be should still be. That's Julia's perspective. When Julia was five, she and her mom moved to Boston from the Dominican Republic. Her mother was undocumented for most of her childhood. She cleaned offices for a living. Julia talks about her mom a lot. How from her mom, she inherited an understanding of her mission to protect working people's jobs.

[Julia Mejia]

I used to work at McDonald's. I used to clean offices with my mom. I did all of that. Those were low entry jobs that I could get. And I saw that with the self checkout in the supermarkets.

Right.

Those jobs were occupied oftentimes by people who are retired or high school students or young people with disabilities.

Right.

And now those jobs are being replaced by a self checkout. And there's a sense of, for me, it's a moral issue too.

Right.

That should be at the center of the AI conversation is that morally, while it's exciting and we could do all of this and we could save lots of money, but what is the unintended consequence of that?

Right.

[Narrator / Host]

When you look at it now, like, do you.

[Julia Mejia]

I yell at people too.

Really get out of the line. What you doing there? You know, that's somebody's job that you just took the, like, lady, get out my face. I'm like, yes, but nah, man. Like it's, you know, I'm at the moral police, but I just feel like we are not thinking about other people. We're often just thinking about ourselves. And what is the quickest way to get out?

[Narrator / Host]

To Councillor Mejia, the headline of the day, really the only story was low wage workers. In the hearing, she asked the Waymo executive about the precedent that was worrying her. Those self checkout machines.

[Julia Mejia]

So right now in supermarkets they do these self checkouts.

[Matt Walsh]

Correct.

[Julia Mejia]

Right. And those are taking jobs from people. And it seems like there is a trend here. And my biggest concern as someone who had to have two to three jobs growing up just to make ends meet is that what we are doing is creating financial hardships for people who are already struggling. And so I'm just curious, how are you reconciling with that impact that you're making on already low wage workers?

[Matt Walsh]

As I said earlier to the other counselor's question, we are committed to increasing workforce developments and job opportunities, opportunities within the industry

[Julia Mejia]

for the drivers. How are you increasing workforce development opportunities for the drivers? Not for people who develop apps or phones. For people who are drivers. Like, tell me about what that looks like.

[Matt Walsh]

We do not have workforce efforts that are specifically aimed at any part of the population we have. We are creating jobs for individuals that want to work in the autonomous vehicle industry. If driving drivers that currently work for

[Narrator / Host]

Uber Lyft should decide, how you understand a story, in part has to do with who you hear it from. For months, I'd been listening to the engineers who first dreamed up these driverless cars. From their perspective, they'd only ever really had one. Could they build a car that drove itself more safely than humans could? Waymo believed the answer was now yes. But Boston had a different question. What about jobs? I did speak to Waymo's northeast policy manager, Anthony Perez, who said he didn't want to be disingenuous. He expected over time there'd be what he called transition for app drivers, but that it wasn't a one to one displacement. He said Waymo would also create jobs cleaning the cars, maintaining the sensors repairing the vehicles. The estimate he pointed me to said every five robo taxis might create one job. But he was also careful to say that it was just very hard to predict the future. Different cities would be different. He wasn't trying to be evasive, he explained. He was trying to be honest about real uncertainty. But in the hearing that day, as Councillor Mejia pressed Waymo's Matt Walsh to describe exactly what jobs his company could provide the existing Uber and Lyft drivers. Matt Walsh came up short.

[Matt Walsh]

If drivers that currently work for Uber or Lyft should decide that they want to work in the autonomous vehicle industry, there will be opportunities for them to do so.

[Julia Mejia]

And what would their job title be?

[Matt Walsh]

I'm not going to sit here and sort to speculate what their job opportunities would be.

[Julia Mejia]

Let's just come to terms with the fact that we are creating a hostile environment for our hardworking people who are no longer going to have work.

[Matt Walsh]

I appreciate the question.

[Julia Mejia]

I forget the guy's name, but he just felt a little bit arrogant. And I felt like, you know what? Even after everybody spoke, there should have been a little bit more humility and humanity in his understanding of why people were so adverse to the idea of losing their jobs. Like, he could have won me over a little bit if he gave me a little bit more heart, and he didn't.

[PJ Vogt]

You really think he could have won you over?

[Julia Mejia]

No, I'm just joking. No, nobody could win me over.

[Narrator / Host]

Part of the issue. Matt Walsh was an outsider. Worse, an outsider from a tech company worth $126 billion. The logic of Boston politics said that nobody in this room had to listen to him. He was here in his role as a well compensated pinata. I understood that at the same time, if Waymo was right, if its driver was 80% safer than a human one, that meant there would be preventable car accidents in Boston in the years to come. Accidents caused by human drivers making human mistakes. We lose our tempers, we check our phones, we think about other things while driving. We don't mean to, but we do. And sometimes that means we hurt other people. The people we hurt would not be voting in the Democratic primary a week after this hearing. But I thought they deserved to have more of a place in the conversation than they'd had so far. Emily Maltaire, my colleague who'd been observing the interview in Councilor Mejia's office. At one point she chimed in, I

[Emily Maltaire]

feel like for me, in learning about this technology, I was very skeptical about the safety of it. And I mean, I've known people who have died in car crashes. I know someone who died in the backseat of an Uber. I don't think it was the Uber driver's fault, but I feel like as I learned more about the technology, I did take seriously the idea that there could be something safer about Waymo technology. Is that something that you're curious about?

[Julia Mejia]

No, I'm not curious about that in any kind of way. Because when I think about safety, and let's just give you the example of the car accident, I don't see someone instinctually coming out of the car to get someone out. Like if it was a Waymo robot or it's not even a robot, it's just a wheel. Who would be there to help support the consumer? Who? What? How? So I don't think the safety concern is a good compelling argument for me.

[Narrator / Host]

For you, it's like I don't think there's anything they would show you where you would think you just trust humans more.

[Julia Mejia]

I would hope the world would trust humans more.

[Narrator / Host]

Councillor Mejia told us when she left that first hearing, she was pretty sure her side had won the unions. The app drivers had made their case against the robots. The Waymo executives had clearly been outmatched. The thing was, though, Councillor Mejia had missed something. There'd been one point person whose testimony she just hadn't heard. Someone who would speak for two brief minutes and who would begin to change the entire conversation in Boston after a short break.

[Julia Mejia]

Carl.

[PJ Vogt]

This episode of Search Engine is brought

[Narrator / Host]

to you in part by Gusto. Small business life means hustling and figuring it all out a lot of times on your own.

[PJ Vogt]

But you don't have to spend your

[Narrator / Host]

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[Teamsters Representative]

On Masters of Scale Iconic leaders reveal how they've beaten the odds.

[Ad Voice / Commercial]

Asking really strong questions is a superpower.

[Union Driver / Testifier]

You want to show up with something

[Teamsters Representative]

radically different and how they've grown companies to incredible heights.

[Gabriela Colette Zapata]

The greatest rewards always come from the greatest risks.

[Teamsters Representative]

That's hit the gas, Airbnb, Zillow, Microsoft, Liquid Death, and more. Hear from the founders who've changed the game. It's anything but business as usual. Find Masters of Scale on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever else you get podcasts.

[Narrator / Host]

Welcome back to the show. Emily and I had been in Boston a couple days now. The cold snap here was at a level I found, frankly, offensive. I dressed wrong for it and was getting those full body jitterbug shivers vibrating down the sidewalk when we go outside. Very cold. It's the cold you feel in your teeth.

[Emily Maltaire]

I'm wearing long underwear. Maybe that's your thing.

[PJ Vogt]

I'm wearing short underwear.

[Narrator / Host]

Exactly as much as I was suffering, Emily Voltaire was thriving. Emily, a devoted public transportation nerd, she actually worked for a time in Boston's transit agency. Emily was just happy to be here. A mental tropical vacation. She kept cheerfully suggesting we ride the T to get to our interviews and harassing me with Boston transit facts.

[Emily Maltaire]

Did you know the bus in Boston is only $1.70?

[Narrator / Host]

That's amazing.

[Emily Maltaire]

Yeah. I was working for the T when they did fare raises, and one of my personal transit heroes, Laurel Paget Seakins, fought really hard to keep the bus fares low.

[Narrator / Host]

What were they at before the raises? Well, the I would cower in the warm alcoves of whatever local business would let me, then hustle into Ubers whenever possible, insisting that taking cabs here was not a luxury or a weakness. It was in fact, important research. That's what the story was about. It was a joke. But it wasn't. I did want to talk to as many drivers as I could while I was in Boston. I'd end up interviewing 8. 4 at the union's office and a random sample of four out in the world. Nearly all the drivers described the job as having recently gotten harder, just like Abdiaziz had. They were working more hours for less money. But the union and non union workers differed in some important ways. The non union drivers didn't really have Waymo on their radar, and they were unlikely to think of driving as a long term career. This matches the data we have. A 2018 study found that the average Uber driver drives for three months. It's a lot of people's first job in our country, the latter to their next one. So the union drivers were pretty unusual, just by dint of the fact that they'd made a career out of this. Those were the things I learned in the cabs I could persuade Emily to take and in the studies I read about those cabs. This Tuesday, however, we were walking, the Boston wind playfully tearing the skin from my bones. Our mission that morning was to meet a man named Carl Richardson for an interview that was thankfully indoors. He met us in the lobby. We'd never met in person before, but I recognized him when I saw him.

[Carl Richardson]

Hi, how are you? Emily.

[Narrator / Host]

Nice to meet you. Hi, Carl. P.J.

[Carl Richardson]

p.J. How are you?

[Abdiaziz]

Good.

[Teamsters Representative]

How are you?

[Carl Richardson]

Good, good. Come on, buddy, let's go.

[Narrator / Host]

Carl has significant hearing loss. He wears two hearing aids. He's also almost completely blind. He has a yellow Labrador with him at all times. That's his guide dog, Dayton. Carl had shown up in these hearings as a private citizen to argue in favor of autonomous vehicles. Like Counselor Julie Mejia, he'd been outraged by what he encountered, but for entirely different reasons. Chapter 3 the right to Autonomy

[Julia Mejia]

Carl

[Narrator / Host]

told me the story of the day as he'd experienced it.

[Carl Richardson]

First of all, when I walked across City Hall Plaza, you can hear protests and rallies, union protests and rallies to

[Julia Mejia]

driverless cars and yes, the human Our union. Our union power. When I say justice.

[Carl Richardson]

Then I walked in and I got there about an hour early on purpose so I could sign on a piece of paper. And I had my intern with me. She said I was number three on the list, so I was hoping to go early. We got there, I think they were probably. Let's see, the food and restaurant union was there. The App driver's union was there. The SEIU union was there. The teamster union was there. I remember the ambulance driver union being there. So the disability community was far outnumbered. And I will even tell you that a handful of disabled people left. They were so discouraged based on what they were hearing, they didn't even want to testify.

[Narrator / Host]

Why? What did they find specifically discouraging?

[Carl Richardson]

I think that they felt like that the city councilors had already made up their mind, and I think they heard anger in the room. So some. Some of the people didn't stay. I felt outnumbered, but I still felt like I had an important story to tell.

[Narrator / Host]

Carl, in the room that day, kept waiting to speak. He had expected that because of his early signup, he'd be one of the first speakers. Instead, he waited nearly the entire four hours. For some reason, they'd slotted him almost at the very end.

[Sharon Durkin]

Carl Richardson. You have two minutes. Nice to see you.

[Carl Richardson]

Yes, Hi, my name is Carl Richardson. I am the Massachusetts State Health ADA coordinator and also an advisory board member for mayor.

[Narrator / Host]

You see Carl, he's wearing a light blue button up and a tie.

[Carl Richardson]

We've heard a lot about the impact on the union and the drivers and the workforce. Let's talk about the communities. I think it would impact in favor of not only people with physical disabilities like myself, of people with mental health.

And by the time I testified, I threw out my written prepared remarks and I just winged it.

We keep talking about employment. I want to have that discussion. Do you know how many jobs I've turned down because I can't get there? Or how many interviews?

[Narrator / Host]

If you spend time talking to Carl, you learn a lot about unemployment in the disability community. It's high. Their unemployment rate is twice as high as the rest of the workforce. One contributing factor to that number that a lot of people don't think about is just transportation. You can't do a job if you can't reliably get to it.

[Carl Richardson]

I agree that Uber driver and Paratrans do an amazing job, but not always. At least once a week, I get denied access to Uber and Lyft because they refuse to take me because I have a service dog. And denying me my civil rights. I often get denied access, too, because they won't go beyond the city limit because they're worried about Mac, their revenue in the ability to pick up a return fare. My life is not limited to the city limit. And the other thing it would do, it would increase.

[Narrator / Host]

There's actually been pretty well documented issues with discrimination by Uber drivers against disabled people. There's an active DOJ lawsuit about it right now. Wheelchair users whose rides are canceled because it would take extra time to help them load in. Blind people whose rides are canceled once the drivers see a service dog. A spokesperson at Uber said they have a zero tolerance policy for confirmed service denials and that Uber fundamentally disagrees with the DOJ's allegations. In the meantime, Carl says he spends a lot of time trying to strategize ways to stop Uber drivers from passing him by. Carl was born with a genetic condition called usher syndrome, type 2. It meant he was destined to lose his vision and hearing, but gradually and as an adult. It's a difficult diagnosis, in part because psychologically it requires you to accept so much, to accept loss, knowing that more loss is just ahead, that whatever you get used to, you'll need to get used to more. There was a time in Carl's adult life, for instance, when he had a driver's license.

[Carl Richardson]

So I drove. I had 2020 vision up until I was about 30, which is one of the reasons why autonomous vehicles are a big deal to me, because I want that feeling that I used to have when I drove of freedom and independence and mobility. I know what I've lost, you know, and I want that back. So people. But it's not. People deal with it differently.

[Abdiaziz]

Yeah.

[Carl Richardson]

And I have a sister who has it. She never took up driving because she knew she was gonna have to give that up someday, and she didn't want to have her heart broken. I said, screw it. I'm gonna drive. I'm gonna work in film and television. I'm gonna do everything I can.

[Narrator / Host]

What type of car did you drive?

[Carl Richardson]

Well, whatever I had. In total, I drove, what, 10, 12 years. I think I totaled five cars, because I remember I was slowly going blind. But I was in denial. So I'm lucky to be alive and sitting here with you today.

[Narrator / Host]

It was hard to let go of driving.

[Carl Richardson]

Yeah. But what finally happened is I sat behind the wheel of a car one day, get him ready to go to

[Julia Mejia]

work,

[Carl Richardson]

and I actually said to myself, am I going to get to work alive today? And I sat there and I couldn't answer It. So I called out sick and I never drove again.

[Narrator / Host]

It's a hard thing to give up.

[Carl Richardson]

Yeah. And I want it back. And I never thought I'd get it back. But I now believe someday, within my lifetime, we might have to convince the politicians you don't need to have eyesight to be able to have the ability to drive an autonomous vehicle. But I think we can do it, because it isn't just about blind people. Everybody has a mother they have to take away their driving from. Everybody has a father where they say, dad, I don't know if you should drive anymore. Everybody has a teenager who's texting on their phone. See, we're not even beginning to think about the possibilities of what autonomous vehicles could do. The other reason I don't want to ban autonomous vehicles in the city of Boston is because I think eventually it'll lead to personal ownership.

[Narrator / Host]

And is that what you really want?

[Carl Richardson]

Oh, you bet. I'm not kidding when I say I have a savings account where I put aside a few hundred bucks a month just for the ability for me to buy an autonomous vehicle someday. And if they ban autonomous vehicles, then they're going to ban me from the right to drive, earn a living, go to school, go to medical appointment, go to the beach on a Sunday, go visit my mom in the nursing home, whatever, with the flexibility that everybody else has.

[Narrator / Host]

Carl wanted me to know that even though Waymo had become the subject of this fight, he did not care if Waymo specifically came to Boston. Any autonomous car company would do. He just wanted to be able to hail a taxi that couldn't pass him by. And he wanted one day to own a car again. In the hearing, near the end of his allotted time, he told a story about something that had happened to him recently. An emergency when he needed a ride.

[Carl Richardson]

Imagine that you're blind and your mother called you at 7 o' clock on a Sunday night and said, I just heard from the sheriff's department. I'm going to get arrested unless I come up with some money. Right away. She got a call. She believed it. I'm the primary caregiver in my family. I had to figure out a way to get out there, and I got denied three times in a row while I was trying to get out. To my mother, public transportation was an option because it was late on a Sunday night. All I wanted, the ability wants to be able to go home to my mom and say, you're okay and I love you. And that would be the positive impact of autonomous vehicles. So, yes, definitely Think about the human component and the people component. But think about it for the whole community at large, not just the union. Thank you.

[Sharon Durkin]

Thank you so much.

[Narrator / Host]

Carla, how do you think the politicians in the room saw you?

[Carl Richardson]

Well, I don't think they were there to hear my speech. The only one that was there to hear was the chair of their hearing testimony.

[Narrator / Host]

So

[Sharon Durkin]

I'm here alone now, so I think it's time to adjourn the hearing.

[Narrator / Host]

All the other city councilors had left before Carl's testimony. Many of them had announced in the hearing that they had to go attend a different teamsters event, a strike by the sanitation workers. Boston's a Union Town.

[Sharon Durkin]

Docket 1141 is adjourned.

[Carl Richardson]

that hearing, I didn't feel like the disability voice or perspective was heard. And it was then that I decided I was going to go back and bring even more people with me to the second hearing.

[Narrator / Host]

The second hearing. In July, two city councilors had unveiled a fairly bold anti Waymo ordinance. The ordinance decreed that any driverless car in Boston had to have a human driver in the driver's seat at all times and called for a feasibility study of the tech, which would include organized labor, but not the disability community. If passed functionally, this would be a ban. The plan was to vote on the ordinance after the second hearing, which would take place in October. The driverless car in Boston was on

[Julia Mejia]

trial for the record.

[Gabriela Colette Zapata]

My name is Gabriela Colette Zapata, District 1 city councillor, and I'm the chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Government operations. Today is October 28, 2020.

[Narrator / Host]

Chapter four. A good fight. The second hearing would go differently. It would go differently from the beginning. One reason was because of its referee, Presiding Counselor Gabriela Coletta Zapata, who started by trying to establish some ground rules.

[Gabriela Colette Zapata]

There will be no demonstration of approval or disapproval or signs. So thank you so much for your understanding. We appreciate you. Again, thank you so much for being here.

[Narrator / Host]

The union went first. A string of testimonies from all sorts of drivers, many familiar faces from the previous hearing. And of course, Councillor Julia Mejia was here dressed today in a jaunty black beret and black glasses.

[Julia Mejia]

I'm still in shock that I have to even have this conversation that here we are in this day and age trying to defend ourselves from robots taking over our jobs, right? And right here, this is the first line of defense, because first they come for the poor jobs, right? You know, I'm always ready for a good fight.

So I walked in, ready. I'm like, this Is one, two, punch. I'm gonna take them all out this time. You know,

[Narrator / Host]

Councilor Mejia in Spanish says they start by attacking the poorest, but from there they keep picking us off. That the city of Boston is not gonna let anyone take away the income of its people.

[Carl Richardson]

The chair of that he honor made it very clear. We're going to listen to everybody. We're going to take it in the order of testimony. Everybody's going to get three minutes. There are going to be no outbursts. They control the hearing much better.

[Gabriela Colette Zapata]

Your testimony and your contributions. We're going to transition because we do have a long list to public testimony. So thank you. Thank you so much.

[Narrator / Host]

After. After the union had spoken, everyone else who put their names on the list got their chance to talk.

[Carl Richardson]

So in closing, if you do do a study, look at not only how it would negatively impact people, but look how it would positively impact people. Because to me, autonomous vehicles is not a dystopian future.

There's a second side of the story. It's a legitimate side of the story. And I felt like I wasn't going to be alone because I had a lot of people with disabilities in the room with me that day, that there

[Union Driver / Testifier]

must be more accessible, affordable, and reliable transportation.

[Narrator / Host]

Carl had done his version of what the unions had done so well. In the first round, he summoned his own coalition. Hello, my name is Steven Yardi. These were people from Best Buddies, an organization for people with intellectual disabilities. They were citizens from Boston's blind community. As a legally blind guide dog user in Boston, I have fewer transportation options than I did 10 years ago. I came from New Hampshire and what I used to call transportation desert, where I only had to rely on my family to help me get back and forth to be able to.

[Carl Richardson]

I felt the room had a. Almost what I would call a seismic shift.

[Narrator / Host]

Autonomous vehicles have the potential to give me and other people with disabilities increased independence, mobility, and flexibility.

[Steven Yardi]

I think we can go

[Narrator / Host]

where the ride can't go.

[Carl Richardson]

There was even a mother against drunk driving who spoke on one of the panels. Right.

[Julia Mejia]

Autonomous vehicles represent another important tool in the effort to eliminate impaired driving. We welcome Waymo.

[Carl Richardson]

I mean, what are you gonna say to her mother? You don't have a right to want autonomous vehicles since your son died.

[Narrator / Host]

Mad values. Our partnership with. What were you just, like, feeling watching them talk?

[Julia Mejia]

So, you know, to be honest with you, at first I didn't know what I was walking into. Like, to be honest, like, I thought I was going to get more of the last go around, but the second hearing, they were more strategic. And when I started hearing from some of the disability community members, you know, I also felt like some. It was very, you know, scripted. And I haven't worked in this space. Understand how you set up all of your advocates to all be on the same message. So I felt like they're all saying the same thing. I've seen this action.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I want to first start off by thanking the public testimony. I think, to my colleague's earlier point is so important.

[Narrator / Host]

So Councillor Mejia, who says what she thinks, told the room that what she thought she'd just seen was a show, a show put on by way of

[Julia Mejia]

benefit from that are not the people that we're trying to serve or the people that we're trying to protect. So I just want to name that. That was very poor taste, in my personal, humble opinion. While I think it's important for us to get that on the record, I think what it did is provide.

[Narrator / Host]

I think the words you used in the hearing is that you said you felt like it was in poor taste.

[Julia Mejia]

Well, I really did say poor taste. I did.

Oh, my God. Everybody needs therapy after they get done with my hearing stuff. Lord have mercy.

So, yeah, I do believe that they

are utilizing the disability community to their advantage. And you don't do that to people.

It's wrong, period.

[Narrator / Host]

I don't know how to ask this question. It's, like, slightly delicate, but also, I'm.

[Carl Richardson]

If I don't want to answer it,

[Narrator / Host]

I'll figure it out, I think. I'm not worried about it. Like, Waymo is not an accessibility company. It's not as if they're inventing autonomous vehicles for accessibility reasons. They want to reach a large market. Accessibility is part of it. It's also the fact of the accessibility issue and the fact of disabled people as allies for them is convenient, sure,

[Carl Richardson]

but so is AARP when they push certain things right, and they have elderly spokespersons. And yes, it's convenient that the two things align together. And I hear you, and maybe that's a little selfish for Waymo, but I'm going into this knowing what I'm getting into. I know that Waymo is aligning themselves. I'm not going to say using us, because I'm not. If you listen to me talk, you can't take advantage of me unless I want to be right. So I know what I'm getting into when I present on behalf of autonomous vehicles. I don't care if they make a profit. If it means my mobility My freedom and my independence. Okay. Is Waymo reaching out to the blind community? Yes. Are they perhaps given donations to the American Council for the Blind? Yes, but the individuals aren't making a dime. The money's going to nonprofit. Right. Organization. So did that answer your question?

[Narrator / Host]

Yeah, and I don't. It's like, I personally, I feel like it's just. It's a question.

[Carl Richardson]

I feel like I'm being used, if that's what you're getting at. They never said how to testify. They never once told me what to say. They just said, please testify on behalf of autonomous vehicles. That's all. That's it. Nobody held my hand. Nobody gave me coaching. And to my knowledge, the handful of people that I recruited that testified, none of them got coaching either.

[Narrator / Host]

So that's Carl's position. Councillor Mejia, though, in the room that day was very fired up, very focused on the target of her Ireland.

[Julia Mejia]

So I just want to name that. That was very poor taste. To utilize folks who are already vulnerable to fight on behalf those who have so much more than any of us here.

[Narrator / Host]

She directed some very strong words at the man sitting across from her, the man in a suit with gray hair.

[Julia Mejia]

Waymo. And I'll start with the CEO, maybe. How can we utilize Waymo instead of replacing our app drivers to improve the quality of experiences? For those folks who have complained, I

[Narrator / Host]

think utilizing Waymo in an autonomous vehicle

[Carl Richardson]

opens the door for elimination of practices,

[Narrator / Host]

illegal practices of discrimination.

[Julia Mejia]

No, that's not the question. The question is right, because you talk about your technology and your ability.

[Narrator / Host]

Councilor Mejia, pro.

[PJ Vogt]

She wanted him to answer.

[Narrator / Host]

How could Waymo create new technology that would improve life for blind people without using driverless cars, Drivers.

[Julia Mejia]

That's the question that.

[Narrator / Host]

I'm not that technology advanced.

[Julia Mejia]

But you're the CEO of a technology company that's going to be.

[Narrator / Host]

No, I'm the president. CEO of the Carroll center for the Blind.

[Julia Mejia]

Well, I was going to say, Gary,

that I. I am.

[Narrator / Host]

It's just. It's Greg. Just Greg.

[Julia Mejia]

Like, oh, my God. So somebody gave me the wrong piece of paper because they got you as

the CEO of Waymo and the. Greg, like, my team better get it together. Okay, so let's go back.

Let me just stay with you real quick.

Right.

I think there is.

There was a white guy who had on a suit. I just made all types of assumptions. Oh, my God. So he was going on and on about his stuff, and I think I. I even think I even said his name wrong. I didn't know who he Was. And I felt like, you know how when you have egg in your face, like, I had to pick up my face and put it back on because I was, like, embarrassing.

[Narrator / Host]

Because you were giving him a hard time.

[Julia Mejia]

You were giving him a hard time,

[Narrator / Host]

and then he has to say to you, I don't work for Waymo.

[Julia Mejia]

I was like, well, okay, then. I'm still mad at you, though. It was embarrassing. Not really. I mean, you know what it was? It was like, because it sounded like he worked for Waymo because he was there advocating fiercely for that community in ways that made me feel like he was part of their team. So, yeah, I mean, I was like, okay, you're on the other side of this, but you're not really on the other side because you're sitting on the Waymo panel anyway, so you're still part of them.

[Narrator / Host]

I think that if I try to sympathize with the feeling Councillor Mejia is expressing here, this is how I understand can be annoying when the other side is a mix of people you're allowed to dismiss out of hand, tech executives allied with people you're not, disability advocates. And when those advocates are all saying similar things, when it's your people, that sounds like solidarity. When it's them, it can sound phony, it can sound orchestrated. But the whole reason I'd found this fight so fascinating is because I thought it was one where you really couldn't easily dismiss anybody. For the people who believe driverless cars will save lots of lives, the human beings with jobs are an unignorable fact. For the people who want to protect those jobs, the human beings asking for better accessibility or safer roads are also an unignorable fact. This fantasy that there were blind people who were secret lobbyists was tempting, because if that were true, it would mean the world was a simpler place. It's not. The chair, Councillor Colette Zapata, said this in the room pretty explicitly. Nobody had been paid to be there.

[Gabriela Colette Zapata]

But I think for the advocates that have been here and that have provided public testimony, especially maybe from those in favor of this, I think it's important to say that everybody has their own individual agency and they were here on their own accord.

[Narrator / Host]

Councilor Colette is a pada. You can see her in the video. Shoulder length, brown hair, big clear glasses. Like Councillor Mejia, she comes from an activist background. As the hearing closed that day, she'd gone from being just the neutral moderator to, when it was her turn, asking the Waymo executive a lot of questions. Questions about jobs, but also just Questions about the car. How did it work? What happened when a blind person ordered one? How did they find it? She seemed to be using the hearing to try to get information, which is how I'd been trying to use the hearing. And I wondered if her experience as a participant had been at all like mine as an observer. Can I just tell you, and I don't know if this is a question or just like a statement. When I was watching the hearings, the thing that was annoying to me was like, I felt like on Waymo's side, they were unwilling to engage with the reality of job loss. But on the app drivers union side, I found myself being annoyed because I didn't see them engaging with a question of safety, the idea that these cars could prevent death or that they could be good for disabled people. It was like neither side wanted to. They just kept skipping. What to me felt like the core trade offs here. When you talk about this could be really good or this could be really bad.

[Gabriela Colette Zapata]

Yeah, I saw that too. And it's my job. It's all of our jobs as folks that are trying to be thoughtful and take a comprehensive approach, to listen to every side. And that will require a lot of compromise and a lot of consensus, but I think that that's good policymaking.

[Narrator / Host]

What do you feel like you need, like, if you had a magic wand to just get exactly the information you want to have to be able to make a decision about whether autonomous vehicles are right for Boston, what's the data you'd want to see?

[Gabriela Colette Zapata]

I love the magic wand question because it always talks about, like, the possibility of getting to a place where everybody's happy, which I don't think is ever going to happen, but I would be happ to get more data of if we could. If I had a magic wand, how many folks would this employ? How many folks would ultimately lose their job? What would be the exact number of potential crashes or safety incidences on behalf of Waymo? And how does that stack up to the existing safety and traffic instances that are already happening in the city of Boston? I mean, there's a lot of. There's a lot. And, yeah, how much money is Waymo going to make off of this? Because I think that's a central question too. Okay, is one company is going to benefit, and then there could be hundreds of potentially hundreds of workers that are out of a job and what that means for our local economy. And so it behooves us as legislators to ask these difficult questions and to challenge not just these major corporations, but challenge labor unions and to challenge advocacy organizations and to try not to get motivated by our passions.

[Narrator / Host]

This was the only time in Boston I really heard anyone say this. That to get to a good answer, every single side would need to be challenged. That finding a solution would mean refusing to offer any group blanket deference. I'd now heard the 20 year story of these cars. I'd read the safety data and I'd done my best in Boston to just listen. In general, I wasn't very satisfied with what I'd heard, but I appreciated Councillor Colette Zapata's prescription that everyone tried to calm their passions, to ask good questions. And Councillor Mejia, for her part, said that she would like to bring all stakeholders to the table, including disability activists. Emily and I left Boston as We zipped down I95 in a human driven car, talking about what we'd seen. Here's where things stood. Back in Beantown, at the end of the second hearing, the city council had chosen not to vote on the ordinance. The functional Waymo ban that many of the councilors had spent eight hours speaking in full throated support of. It seemed possible they'd noticed that passing an ordinance that so thoroughly excluded the disability community was not politically wise. The decision on Waymo now seems to be moving to the state level. There we now have competing billsone that would approve driverless cars. The other that would require a human being behind the wheel at all times. Essentially a ban. Driving home, I had a realization about what we'd seen there. Emily and I had sat for days with different people who all believed they'd glimpsed a vision of the future. Abdiaziz had a vision of Waymo finishing what Uber had started, taking the market for itself. Carl had a vision of a future where he drove again to the beach with his wife. Counselor Mejia had an ominous vision where her neighborhood was empty, the people all replaced by machines. Everybody was here in the present fighting for fighting against a movie playing in their minds. Here's the vision I see. I started to glimpse it in a conversation with reporter Timothy B. Lee. We were talking about the future. He was describing his vision of how things were about to change. He pointed out how today, if a robot driver makes a mistake, footage goes viral online. But someday soon, he imagines we'll be in a situation where the clips that go viral will be of human beings doing the kinds of things on the road that today we just tolerate. Like, can you believe this maniac is still allowed to drive?

[Teamsters Representative]

I do think that society's tolerance for bad Driving is going to go down. So there's been this trend over the last few decades where the amount of training you need as a teenager to get a driver's license has been going up. I think that'll be continue to go up. And if somebody's caught drunk driving, we're pretty reluctant to take the driver's license away because their livelihood might depend on it. But once driverless taxes are cheap, or once you can buy a driverless vehicle, a judge might be much more comfortable saying, like, the penalty for your first instance of direct driving is a lifetime ban on driving a car. Like, you can have a driverless car that takes wherever you want, but you just can't get behind the wheel.

[Narrator / Host]

In Timothy's vision, change comes fast. In about five years, driverless cars are as common as Ubers. Today, in around 10 years, every new car standard just has a Waymo package, a robot driver and sensors, a button you can press if you don't want to drive. I shared Timothy's vision. I believe driverless cars will soon be everywhere, not even just because they're safer, but because of consumer demand. The same force that broke the politicians who resisted Uber not long ago. A lot of AI is like this technology, too useful to ignore, even if it causes social pain. If we're going to be okay, we're going to need to envision some new futures, new compromises, new ways to share the dividends of progress with the people it displaces. There are precedents for this. When containerization put a ton of longshoremen at work in the 1960s, the West coast union negotiated a deal. The employers could bring in the new machines, but they had to pay into a fund that guaranteed the existing workforce wouldn't be laid off and give early retirement payouts to workers whose jobs disappeared. You could do something like that. You could do a lot of things. But whatever we're going to do. I did not find the seeds of that new compromise in Boston. It also does not exist in D.C. which has been delaying driverless cars with bureaucratic hurdles. Or in New York, where my governor talked briefly about allowing driverless cars, then retreated under pressure. But these are the places where a bargain could likely be struck. These are where drivers, Democrats and Teamsters have for a few more years at least, leverage. They should use it. But they'll have to be inventive. They'll have to imagine visions of the future more vivid than the word no.

[Matt Walsh]

Sa.

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[Steven Yardi]

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[Narrator / Host]

Search Engine is a presentation of Odyssey. It was created by me, PJ Vogt and Shruti Pinamaneni. Garrett Graham is our Senior Producer. Emily Maltaire is our Associate Producer. Theme, Original composition and mixing by Armin Bazarian, who just did a fantastic job on the music in these two episodes. If I can say that our production intern is Piper Dumont, this episode was fact checked by Mary Mathis. Our Executive producer is Leah Rees Dennis. Thanks to the rest of the team at Odyssey. Rob Morandi, Craig Cox, Eric Donnelly, Colin Gaynor, Maura Curran, Joe Svita, Francis, Kurt Courtney and Hilary Schuck. Special thanks to Kim Kardashian, Kubel, Alfred Potter, Omar Fsemi, Isabel Urbano, Erica Noel, Alejandro Torero, and all the folks at the Boston SEIU office. Plus Anthony Perez, Matt Schumwinger, Alex Roy, Karen Levy, Henry Donna, and the many other Uber drivers we bugged for this story. If you would like to support reporting like the reporting in these two episodes. Plus get ad free episodes, zero reruns and bonus episodes. Plus, please consider signing up for Incognito Mode at Search Engine Show. It's how we keep this thing running. Thanks for listening. We'll see you soon.