Waymo robotaxi's go live

You can now take driverless taxi rides in San Francisco with Waymo. The company, which is part of the Google group, has a fleet of self-driving white Jaguars (see below).

This technology was developed in Phoenix, Arizona, and has been tweaked and improved for the last 15 years. Each car has a plethora of sensors and cameras onboard, and servo motors that control the vehicle. It's constantly connected to the internet, to geolocation databases, for tracking and navigation purposes.

As a 58-year old, I can still remember the world before computers and the internet. The fact that humans now trust a machine to drive them around on the open road is truly amazing to me.

I come from an era where saying "the system is offline" is a valid excuse. When I get to a sink in a bathroom at the airport, I expect the sensors over the taps to not work. I'll have to update my own programming!

I'm excited by these developments. As a shareholder in Google, Tesla and Uber, I'm looking forward to the development of the robotaxi industry.