Waymo says their autonomous-car AI would avoid fatal human crashes

Alphabet’s self-driving car unit Waymo is claiming that its artificial intelligence could have avoided or mitigated the majority of a set of fatal accidents.

In a white paper published Monday, the company simulated 72 deadly-crashes that occurred between in 2008 and 2017 in Chandler, Ariz., where Waymo currently operates.

Waymo’s artificial driver was able to avoid or mitigate the crashes excluding cases where the car was hit from behind.

“We believe we have an opportunity to improve road safety by replacing the human driver with the Waymo Driver,” Trent Victor, the company’s director of safety research, said in a blog post. “This study helps validate that belief.”

Accidents have been a major problem for the development of self-driving vehicles, especially after a Uber test vehicle hit and killed a woman in Arizona in 2018.

There is currently no federal law regulating the new technology, despite bipartisan bills being proposed in both chambers over the last few years.