Addressing consent first, it was given by the elected officials of the given cities, which is why they only operate in certain cities and only in certain areas of those cities. Anyone that objects to that act should petition for change, or vote for officials that will change it.

Airplanes are a pretty poor comparison. They’re not fully autonomous, nor are they trying to be. But even if they were trying, autonomous airplanes would be operating in so many jurisdiction’s airspace that even getting a short route, say LA to SF, would be almost impossible. Every city and country they fly over would have to approve. Also, every new version of auto pilot in planes is at some point going to release and no one is going to roll their updates out to the entire fleet at once. They’re going to install it in a few, and try it out for a while, then a few more, almost exactly like a beta test, it’s just not called that.

The thing with Waymo is that no matter how much they test, no matter if they prove to be safer than humans by orders of magnitude, it will never be enough for some people. So do we wait for 100% of drivers to consent to them? 90%? Where do we draw the line? If we put it to a vote, it’s 50%+1 of voters, not even drivers. At least with city councils and mayors involved, it can be a much greater majority.

I get that people don’t like them, but I see them as the beginning of a carless future. Autonomous cars will cover situations where mass transit doesn’t work for whatever reason.