For as long as I’ve been studying and covering driving automation technology, nearly a decade now, there have been two, parallel stories about self-driving vehicles. On the one hand the development of the technology itself has been a story of amazing progress, but all along the way the public’s view of the technology has been wildly out of step with the underlying reality.

For example, the first time I rode a Waymo in 2016, the better part of a year before Google’s Self Driving Car Project took on the name Waymo, everyone thought driverless cars were nearly at hand. Experiencing the magic of an autonomous vehicle for the first time, it was understandable why this view was so pervasive: even on a limited route, with a human behind the wheel, you never forget your first autonomous ride. There’s no way for the experience to not fill you with wonder at the age of technological miracles we occupy.

At the same time, as an observer of driving and human behavior, it was also obvious from that first ride how far the technology still had to come. Though the vehicle was undeniably driving itself, it did so in an incredibly slow, conservative manner that was a far cry from the “naturalistic” driving AVs need to fit in on public roads. The vehicle also exhibited strange, unnatural driving behaviors that weren’t dangerous, but showed that a lot more development would be required than most people seemed to think at the time.

Fast forward to 2019, when I took my first driverless ride with Waymo in Phoenix, Arizona. I was blown away by the sensation of a true driverless ride, even in a relatively simple operating domain, and felt for the first time that the technology was truly reaching the cusp of maturity. Yet by this time, the public mood had already started to turn pessimistic. Almost as rapidly as the technology had developed, the public’s belief in the technology seemed to be headed in the opposite direction. 

This disconnect, which saw perceptions hit their high point when the technology was still wildly immature, and saw disillusionment creep in even as the dawn of truly driverless robotaxis broke on American roads, is more than mere inconvenience. Because driving is a fundamentally social task, it can’t be abstracted to simple, objective metrics that are independent of subjective human perceptions. For a computer to drive thousands of pounds of metal on public roads with us, it must earn our trust.

Today, the reality of truly driverless vehicles is here. Every day, thousands of Americans will ride in completely autonomous vehicles, and that number grows all the time. With this critical barrier now crossed, it is imperative that we take a moment to re-align perception with reality. No longer must we craft our perceptions of autonomous vehicles from informed extrapolation or science fiction tropes; now reality can inform our understanding of what works and what doesn’t in driving automation.

That’s why this is the perfect moment to reboot our public conversations about the current reality and future potential of one of the most important technologies of the 21st Century. Now, with nearly a decade of success and failure to learn from, we can move past the cycle of hype and disillusionment that have defined this space for too long, and enter a new period where we climb the “slope of enlightenment.” In doing so, this critical sector has the opportunity to reboot its relationship with its stakeholders: investors, the public sector, the media, and everyone who shares the roads with this technology.

I’m proud to announce that on April 2, 2025 we will embark on this project of realigning the perception of autonomous vehicles with its reality, at the exclusive Ride AI Summit in Southern California. Together with Timothy B. Lee of the brilliant Understanding AI newsletter, and the organizers of the excellent Micromobility conferences that I have attended for years, the Ride AI summit will bring together the elite of driving automation and AI-powered hardtech for a series of conversations we hope will radiate out into the public discourse. Together, as a community of shared values, the companies doing real things in this exciting space will generate a new, more sustainable sense of excitement for this critical technology, based on substance and not just hype.

I’m thrilled that Waymo has agreed to sponsor this event, continuing the conversation we’ve been having about this conversation since 2016. In the weeks to come we’ll be announcing more sponsors and speakers, reinforcing the main goal of this gathering: to host the smartest, most relevant conversations about the perception and reality of these technologies. We hope you’ll join us next April at the Ride AI conference, where the future of mobility is more than just talk.

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