Do we even know what % of Waymo rides in SF are completely autonomous? I would not be surprised if more of them are remotely piloted than they've let on...
And those moments where the car gives up and waits for async assistance are very obvious to the rider. Most rides in Waymos don't contain any moments like that.
Even if it's just a high level instruction set, it's possible that that occurs often enough to present scaling issues. It's also totally possible that it's not a problem, only time will tell.
What I have in mind is the Amazon stores, which were sold as being powered by AI, but were actually driven by a bunch of low-paid workers overseas watching cameras and manually entering what people were putting in their carts.
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-just-walk-out-actual...