Could Cruise be the Theranos of AI? And is there a dark secret at the core of the entire driverless car industry?

Chonky TL;DR because I was a little annoyed that there wasn't one here -

Certainly no commercial product could ever work at a profit if you needed remote operators anything like that often. As Brooks points out, the term “autonomous” barely applies.

Beyond what Brooks pointed out, the story also notes “Those vehicles were supported by a vast operations staff, with 1.5 workers per vehicle”.

Fitting with this general vibe, a source (that in fairness, I don’t know well) just told me that his impression having visited with them not so long ago was that “they're definitely relying on remote interventions to create an illusion of stronger AI than they really have”.

if Cruise’s vehicles really need an intervention every few miles, and 1.5 external operators for every vehicle, they don’t seem to even be remotely close to what they have been alleging to the public. Shareholders will certainly sue, and if it’s bad as it looks, I doubt that GM will continue the project, which was recently suspended.

As safety expert Missy Cummings said to me this morning, remote operators could well be “the dark secret of ALL self-driving.”

Human lives at are stake.

Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt essentially confirmed that their “driverless” cars need very regular human intervention: