Search Engine Podcast

The Search Engine podcast has released a two-part special series, hosted and reported by PJ Vogt, this week on Audacy. 

In the two-part series, Search Engine explores both the promise and the peril of driverless cars.

Before going further with the special series, Ear Worthy has not reviewed Search Engine, so let's start there.

Search Engine is a weekly podcast hosted by PJ Vogt (formerly of Reply All) that attempts to answer a wide range of questions about life, news, and the internet, ranging from serious topics to trivial curiosities. Edited by Sruthi Pinnamaneni, it is a highly regarded show (named by Time, The Economist) focusing on investigative curiosity and personal,, sometimes "dumb," questions.

The show is known for its conversational, investigative, and often humorous storytelling style, focusing on finding answers to niche or burning questions. Episodes cover a diverse range of topics, such as "Are flushable wipes actually flushable?"(They are not!), the politics of Venezuela, the rise of AI, and "an anthropology of gooners".

Launched in 2023, the show is a continuation of PJ Vogt's work in audio journalism, focusing on deep dives into topics you might otherwise just search for online. The show is supported by advertising and a listener-supported premium subscription service called Incognito Mode.

We all know that artificial intelligence might replace many of the jobs that humans do today, but much of that speculation is still theoretical. One job that isn't theoretical, where robots are already replacing humans, is driving.

Professional driver is one of the most common jobs in America for young men without college degrees. Driving is also one of the most dangerous things most of us routinely do, one of the most common ways for Americans to die. Driverless cars are poised to change both realities. They're safer, they're useful, and they threaten to replace about four million American jobs.

The first episode - Are you a good driver? - tells the story of how a small, secret team at Google spent fifteen years trying to teach a computer to drive, from a failed robot in the Mojave Desert to what may be the safest vehicle on the road. The episode traces the engineering breakthroughs, the near-catastrophes, and takes a skeptical look at the safety data that Waymo says proves its cars are 90% safer than human drivers in serious crashes. (Release date: March 23, 2026)

The second episode - The Trial of the Driverless Car - heads to Boston, where 75,000 rideshare drivers, city councilors, and the Teamsters are organizing to ban Waymo before it arrives. The Teamsters appear to be winning, until a blind advocate with extremely sharp political instincts shows up to organize the opposition. What follows is a political fight where no one is wrong, and no one agrees. (Release date: March 26, 2026)

While exact, real-time figures are hard to track, there are only a few thousand fully autonomous (driverless) vehicles operating on U.S. roads, primarily restricted to testing or specific robotaxi pilot programs. As of 2026, Waymo operates around 2,500+ robotaxis in cities like San Francisco, LA, Phoenix, and Austin.

Tesla Autopilot is considered significantly safer than the average human driver, according to company data, with fewer accidents per mile. However, it is not fully autonomous, requires constant human supervision, and has been linked to hundreds of crashes and safety investigations. Concerns exist around "phantom braking" (sudden braking) and cases where the system misinterprets obstacles, leading to investigations of at least 2.4 million vehicles, as reported by Forbes.

Check out this special two-part series on driverless cars at Search Engine. This is what great journalism sounds like.