The rate that new technology is adopted is accelerating
In America, the use of the internet was adopted six times faster...
...than electricity had been...
...when it became available a century earlier
But greater innovation can bring greater risks...
...which require more control
Many aspects of our lives are very heavily regulated...
...things like, food, medicines, cars, aviation
These are all things where if something goes wrong...
...it could be really bad, lots of people can die
Too many rules can stifle creativity...
...while too few can lead to tragedy
There’s a very common perception that regulation and innovation...
...are sort of opposed to each other, if you have more of one...
...then you’ll get less of the other
So how can we maximise the benefits of innovation...
...while also reducing its risk?
Technology has delivered longer, safer and more interesting lives...
...but innovation is always a journey into the unknown
When you have a new technology...
...it’s going to have unexpected consequences...
...it’s going to be used in unanticipated ways
Some of those will be good, some of them could be harmful
So this is where regulators step in
Most key technologies are heavily regulated...
...cars, aviation, health care, finance
The difficulty is that technology moves quickly, regulators move slowly
So finding the right way to regulate a technology...
...is always very difficult
It’s a sort of balancing act
The challenge of balancing innovation and risk...
...is seen in the tantalising progress of one particular technology...
...autonomous cars
I think it’s a very interesting technology that, you know...
...potentially could make a big difference in the future
The trouble is, it doesn’t quite work yet
Several tech companies are racing to develop autonomous vehicles
Google’s sister company, Waymo, is one of the leaders
It runs a fleet of fully driverless cars already out on public roads
In October 2020, we launched our first commercial product in Arizona...
...so if you were to fly into Chandler, Arizona...
...and download the Waymo app, you can hop into a fully autonomous car
You get into the car, buckle up...
...hit a button of where you want to go and you’re on the road
Our Waymo driver never gets tired, never gets distracted...
...is never grumpy
Nearly 40,000 people die...
...and millions are injured every year on America’s roads
So putting driverless cars on public highways...
...could present a huge risk
Can we build a vehicle that can drive in ordinary traffic...
...with other road users, with cyclists...
...with pedestrians, with other cars?
There are humans that can’t do that
The challenge is getting these vehicles to work...
...not in a controlled environment in the everyday world...
...which is a complex and unpredictable place
Waymo chose Chandler as its test site...
...because Arizona state regulations gave it...
...greater freedom to experiment
Arizona has made an intentional decision...
...to become the centre of innovation for autonomous vehicles
We helped to pass and worked hand-in-hand with policymakers...
...and other stakeholders to really get the legislation passed...
...and so the current regulatory atmosphere...
...has been one that we’ve been able to help shape and help inform
Uber, another company racing to develop autonomous vehicles...
...began testing in nearby Tempe...
...to take advantage of Arizona’s regulatory regime
But the regulations were thrust into the spotlight...
...one Sunday night in March 2018
Seriously hurt in a crash with a self-driving Uber vehicle
Elaine Herzberg was killed as she crossed a road in Tempe...
...by a test car belonging to Uber
A safety driver was on board at the time...
...but failed to prevent the collision
The vision system couldn’t figure out what was happening...
...didn’t put on the brakes and hit her
And some people have said that, you know...
...had there been a stricter regulatory regime around these vehicles...
...then this accident wouldn’t have happened
Following the accident, Arizona immediately suspended...
...any further testing of Uber’s autonomous vehicles
Waymo continue to operate in Chandler...
...and insists that its technology is safe
We’ve done 20m miles of testing on public roads...
...and just recently, we released a safety paper...
...for the public, for academics and policymakers...
...to really look at our safety outcomes
We looked at 6m of our autonomous miles...
...and we found that we had only very minor collisions...
...in those 6m miles of driving
The proof is in the numbers...
...we are a very safe autonomous vehicle service
For self-driving cars and their regulators...
...the biggest hurdle may not be safety but public opinion
The evidence so far is that autonomous cars are very safe drivers
So about 40,000 people die on the roads every year in America...
...for example, if you make an autonomous car a thousand times safer...
...you’re still going to have 40 people being killed...
...by autonomous vehicles every year
Every one is going to be a newspaper headline...
...you know, “person killed by robot car”
While too little regulation can be risky...
...too much can be bad for business
And those in the know claim this is the case...
...with another emerging technology in America, drones
Two big dangers with drones...
...one is they’ll fall on your head and kill you...
...the other is they’ll crash into some other flying vehicle...
...and make that crash
And so clearly, this is not something where you can just have...
...a free for all, let people do whatever they like...
....you’ve got to have rules
Since 1958, the body that sets those rules in America...
...has been the Federal Aviation Administration
Aviation for 100 years has involved carrying people somewhere...
...in the air on a giant metal structure...
...with thousands of gallons of fuel strapped underneath
Along came drones, I think it’s fair to say the regulators didn’t know...
...what to do with that because their entire history and structure...
...has been focused on protecting people on board an aircraft...
...by creating very high standards...
…both for the pilot as well as for the aircraft
The FAA’s reaction was to make flying drones...
...commercially very hard indeed
Initially, if you wanted to fly a drone...
...in order to take pictures of a property that was being sold...
...or survey a building site, you couldn’t do it...
...unless you had a pilot’s licence
Many people felt that this rule was sort of silly
It was imposing the rules for the old technology on the new technology
The FAA updated its regulations in 2016...
...but some argue that the rules are still lagging behind...
...and stopping drones from fulfilling their full potential
The next frontier for drones and their regulation...
...really is what’s called beyond visual line of sight...
...and this would enable drones to fly unlimited distance autonomously
You can’t gain much value out of delivering a package...
...only a couple thousand feet, you could just walk it over there or drive it
If you’re going to do package delivery with the drone...
...you’re going to want to fly a few miles
US drone company Wing is already doing this...
...but not at its base in California...
...more than 7,000 miles away, in Logan, Australia
Wing went to Australia for a number of reasons...
...the regulator in Australia has very high safety standards...
...and we knew that we would be able to work with them...
...to ensure that our operations were reviewed carefully...
…and they would be safe
And now we’re doing thousands of deliveries a week to customers
Beyond line of sight is really necessary for operations to scale over time
Some claim the FAA has driven these innovations overseas
Behind the scenes, there’s tremendous frustration...
...that the FAA is not moving fast enough...
...other countries are ahead
For something as serious and obviously regulated as aviation...
...where you just know that rules are coming
It’s very difficult to convince investors...
...to put their money in to something when literally the government...
...is telling you this is not currently permitted...
...and we don’t know when we’re going to have a set of rules
Letting large numbers of drones loose in already crowded airspace...
…is definitely a safety challenge
The technology exists today to allow us and others to operate...
...beyond line of sight and the regulatory environment...
...will have to adapt to allow that to happen
What we have in the United States so far...
...is basically no risk tolerance
We need to figure out ways to promote their integration...
...into society rather than dwelling in these overly conservative...
...traditional safety frameworks that don’t really apply...
...to these types of risks
If too much regulation can smother innovation...
...and too little can be dangerous...
...is there a middle ground?
There are times when regulation and innovation...
...go hand in hand, so they’re not always enemies
What it’s all about is having the right kind of regulation...
...and having smart regulation
And a really interesting example of that is what we’ve seen recently...
...in financial services with so-called sandbox regulation
The British financial-technology sector...
...was an early adopter of sandbox regulation
A sandbox is a place where kids can play with buckets and spades...
...and sand and mud, and they can make a mess...
...and it’s fine to make a mess in the sandbox
You wouldn’t let them do that on the living-room floor...
...but a sandbox is a controlled, closed environment...
...where making a mess is allowed
Keeping innovation in a controlled environment...
...is sensible in the fast-moving financial sector
If a bank fails or something goes wrong...
...lots of people lose lots of money...
...and so the sandbox lets you have the best of both worlds
It means that there’s close regulatory supervision...
...but there’s also lots and lots of scope for innovation
The sandbox approach helped London become a world-leader...
...in financial technology, a sector worth more than...
...£6bn to the UK economy
And it is now being adopted for another emerging technology...
…that’s on the move, electric passenger flight, known as eVTOL
The Civil Aviation Authority regulates Britain’s airspace
We see significant potential for eVTOL in the near term...
...in terms of adapting existing helicopter markets
But also in the long term, it could potentially play a role...
...in connecting up different parts of the country
eVTOL aircraft are similar to drones powered by motors...
...that run on batteries but big enough to carry passengers
Vertical Aerospace in Bristol has already flown a prototype
We’re looking at decarbonisation of aerospace...
...which has historically been a very polluting environment...
... and moving more towards battery power...
...taking energy from renewable sources
Vertical Aerospace is part of a consortium of companies...
...in a regulatory sandbox working with the Civil Aviation Authority
Collaboration is really important so that we can ensure that we have...
...an ecosystem ready to accept an aircraft ...
...when it actually goes into full-scale production
We don’t have to choose between innovation and regulation
If we engage with someone at an early design stage...
...or a conceptual stage, then what we’re helping them to do...
...is build a product that can actually be regulated...
...rather than coming in at the end and effectively kicking it into touch
Autonomous vehicles, drones, eVTOL aircraft...
...three new technologies with the potential...
...to deliver great benefits, but also real dangers
Regulation needs to be used to manage the risks...
...while also maximising potential rewards
It’s tempting to see regulation and innovation as a sort of seesaw...
...when one of them goes up, the other one goes down
But actually, the reality is more complex than that...
...and there are ways that you can have safe, sensible regulations...
...and still have lots of innovation