Edward Markey

Thanks to my questioning at a Feb. 4 Senate Commerce Committee hearing, the public was informed that Waymo, the autonomous vehicle firm, employs remote assistance operators to help its driverless cars navigate roads in certain situations and that many of these Waymo operators are located in the Philippines.

The Feb. 16 editorial “The long view of self-driving cars” suggested I care about this issue only because of autonomous vehicles’ impact on taxi, rideshare, transit and truck drivers. And I am concerned about the potential economic impact of wiping out millions of U.S. jobs with a technology that, unbeknownst to most of the public, relies on remote employees.