A new investigation from Sen. Ed Markey has zeroed in on the human staffers who operate behind-the-scenes at self-driving car companies like Waymo, Tesla, and Zoox. While many of these companies emphasize that they seek to automate most aspects of driving, they still depend on humans to assist these cars when their software encounters confusing situations—or fails.
The investigation began at the beginning of February and was led by Markey, who has taken a particular interest in the self-driving car industry. The study involved sending letters to seven companies working on autonomous vehicles—Aurora, May Mobility, Motional, Nuro, Tesla, Waymo, and Zoox—and asking them detailed questions about when and how they deploy human remote operators or assistants.
None of the seven companies that Markey’s office reached out to were willing to share how often human staffers need to help their autonomous vehicles reorient themselves, Markey’s investigation found. The office’s research also found that Waymo is the only autonomous vehicle company that relies on staffers based outside the U.S. to help assist its driving system, and that it’s the only company that employs a large share of workers who perform this role without holding a U.S. driver’s license.
“My investigation revealed a wide range of concerning practices,” Markey said in a statement, “from employees assisting vehicles from overseas to wide variations in communication lag times between vehicles and human operators.”
The use of remote vehicle assistant workers raises several concerns, including questions over latency and the lack of consistent standards across the emergent self-driving industry. Another concern is fatigue on the part of remote operators, and the risk that they might mislead or cause a robotaxi to engage in dangerous behavior. City officials in cities like San Francisco are also worried about unplanned stops, and their impact on local traffic and emergency operations.
A recent Fast Company investigation, which analyzed dozens of reports filed by public transit operators in San Francisco, also highlighted concerns with the quality of the call centers used by public officials to reach these companies, including remote teams who are supposed to respond to emergency events, when their technology suffers an issue. The Fast Company investigation also highlighted the issue of unplanned stops, which can require a Waymo remote operator, someone on the company’s event response team, or even a city first responder to intervene.
Importantly, these companies frequently emphasize that their software is not designed for remote vehicle operation. Instead, companies maintain that remote assistance teams are simply advising software, and they emphasize it’s possible for vehicles to ignore context or suggestions by remote teams. In their letters to Markey’s office, which formed the basis of the investigation, many defended their approach to remote operations, or pushed back on Markey’s characterization of the risks.
Still, Markey wrote on Tuesday to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) urging the agency to conduct a further investigation. In his letter, Markey acknowledged that remote operators indeed can help AVs operate safely, but lack adequate oversight and safeguards. “These results reveal an industry that is deeply opaque about its reliance on human operators, resistant to meaningful accountability, and in urgent need of federal oversight,” he wrote, referring to his investigation.
He soon plans to propose legislation addressing the human operators involved in the self-driving car industry. Markey has previously co-sponsored proposed legislation that would limit where self-driving cars can operate, and criticized these companies at a recent hearing on autonomous vehicles.