Level 5 was the goal and the expectation that everybody was aiming for. Waymo's views are easy to interpret from logically considering their actions. Level 4, especially as they are doing it, is in no way whatsoever a stepping stone to level 5. Yet they're spending tremendous resources directed towards things that would have literally and absolutely no place in level 5 autonomy. It seems logically inescapable to assume that not only do they think they'll be unable to hit level 5 in the foreseeable future, but also that nobody else will be able to either. If you can offer an alternative explanation or argument, please share!

Another piece of evidence also comes from last year when Google scaled back Waymo with layoffs as well as "pausing" its efforts at developing self driving truck technology. [1] That technology would require something closer to L5 autonomy, because again - massive preprocessing is quite brittle and doesn't scale well at all. Other companies that were heavily investing in self-driving tech have done similarly. For instance Uber sold off its entire self-driving division in 2021. I'm certainly happy to hear any sort of counter-argument, but you need some logic instead of ironically being the one trying to mindread me or Waymo!

[1] - https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/26/23809237/waymo-via-autono...