Waymo CEO: Don’t Move Fast & Break Things With Physical AI

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Silicon Valley and the tech industry are known for their “move fast and break things” mantra. This has been how the software industry has operated forever basically. In fact, the modus operandi has probably accelerated in recent years. Breaking things almost seems like the goal sometimes.

Well, Waymo was spawned in Silicon Valley, but it has taken a much different approach over the last two decades. It has taken a super cautious, slow, safety-first approach. It is now logging millions of miles of completely self-driven robotaxi trips, but the company is still cautiously expanding. With its experience, the company is also now emphasizing that other physical AI companies be cautious with how they develop.

Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov has warned companies against taking a “move fast and break things” approach to this. Instead, Dolgov, in a Y Combinator interview that came out this week, suggested that companies working in the physical AI industry “move fast and ship safely.”

“There’s simply not an undo and a retry button,” he added. Safety needs to be at the core of their models, methods, and system architectures, he argues. That’s just logical, right?

Now, whether the rest of the physical AI industry listens and follows the same approach … well, that may be an unrealistic expectation. And that’s probably the reason Dolgov is saying this — he knows how people in the industry operate and how careful (or not) other companies are being.