Amid the buzz of South by Southwest, transport tech took center stage as Austin's Mayor Kirk Watson and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi engaged in a pointed dialogue about the integration of autonomous vehicles into the city's fabric. The pair crossed words on issues ranging from traffic disruptions to public safety, as reported by CBS Austin. With Austin's streets acting as testing grounds for driverless tech, the mayor didn't mince words about the urgent need for solid cooperation between companies and city officials.
Watson, voicing his concerns about self-driving vehicles, took a stance that resonated with public apprehension. Having dealt with autonomous vehicles jamming up roads post-football games, he remains skeptical. "I see a lot of promise in those vehicles, but we're not there yet," Watson said, as reported by CBS Austin. The issue of non-responding vehicles to emergency protocols surfaced as a particular pain point during the early days of his tenure, destabilizing Watson's confidence in the technology that was supposed to reshape travel as we understand it.
During the SXSW event, the mayor, channeling the community's growing concern, made it clear that the wraparound effects of autonomous vehicles on public safety and city infrastructure were non-negotiable. "I'm all for profit margins and stuff, but ultimately the public good has to play a role in this," he expressed at the panel, according to My San Antonio. This sentiment poignantly captures the crux of the dilemma facing Austin, a city at the intersection of burgeoning tech advances and the daily lives of its citizens.
On the flip side of the exchange, Uber's head honcho, Khosrowshahi, without developing autonomous tech themselves, assured they were collaborating with providers to ensure that driverless vehicles are "multiple times safer" than those with human drivers. Prefacing his commitment, he stipulated, "It's not good enough just to be safer than a person, but you've got to be much, much safer [than] a person," as he shared with CBS Austin. However, despite these assurances, how the tech will unfold on the streets of Austin remains a subject of broad and intense scrutiny.
