Would you trust a robot with your money? My Waymo ride made me wonder

A lady in Los Angeles shook her fist at me, and I wasn't even driving. I was in the back of a Waymo, which is a taxi that drives itself.

I'd called the Waymo on an app, and it was waiting for me in an unmarked side road. As we turned out towards the highway, a car approached from the opposite direction. The Waymo and the approaching car were each on their own side, but there wasn't much wriggle room, so both had drifted slightly towards the middle, which is the natural place to be on a road that narrow. Any driver would have shifted over a touch.

The Waymo wouldn't yield. In fact it froze. It wouldn't go forward or back. It refused to budge. It just sat there, and sitting inside it was bizarre. I really didn't know what to do.

Then the lady shook her fist at me, or really at a robot, and I couldn't help laughing. It was nuts. In the end she edged round us, and the moment she was clear, the Waymo carried on with gay abandon.

It then seemed to want to make up for lost time! A sign by the road flashed my speed at me. We were speeding! There I was, in the back of a car with nobody driving it, and I found that a little unnerving.

That feeling stayed with me at the conference I was attending for financial planners in California. Some attendees were suspicious of AI and others couldn't wait to bring new technology into their business.

I think AI will handle the processing work very well, so our team will be able to help more people. But the Waymo couldn't handle an unexpected situation, and real lives are full of moments like that.

So where will you trust a machine, and where will you want a human?