When it comes to hitting kids, however, internal materials indicate the company’s machines were struggling to match the safety performance of even an average human: Cruise’s goal was, at the time, for its robots to merely drive as safely around children at the same rate as an average Uber driver — a goal the internal materials note it was failing to meet.

“It’s I think especially egregious to be making the argument that Cruise’s safety record is better than a human driver,” said Smith, the University of South Carolina law professor. “It’s pretty striking that there’s a memo that says we could hit more kids than an average rideshare driver, and the apparent response of management is, keep going.”