It's Robotaxi Summer. Buckle Up.

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Earlier this year, I tried to convince my mother-in-law to ride in one of Waymo's driverless taxis in San Francisco. It was a tough sell at first, but was helped along by a series of careening Uber rides, which prompted the question: How much worse could a robot drive? The answer, at least for us, as our Waymo carried us gently down the city's famous hills from stop sign to stop sign, was clear. We felt safer with no one behind the wheel.