Notes on a ‘Great Reset’, by Francis X. Maier

By Francis X. Maier, The Catholic Thing, August 6, 2025

Francis X. Maier is a senior fellow in Catholic studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is the author of True Confessions: Voices of Faith from a Life in the Church.

If you don’t know about Waymo, the autonomous taxi service, now’s the time to learn, because it’s coming to a neighborhood near you.  Maybe not now or next year.  But inevitably, like death and taxes.  Except it’s more fun, more fun, that is, unless you’re the one guy in 10,000 who gets stuck in a rogue AI vehicle with a software glitch that won’t stop driving and won’t let you out until its battery runs down.  But hey, nothing in this life is perfect.

So on a recent visit to our oldest son and his family, my wife and I drove around San Francisco in a Waymo AI taxi.  It was an impeccably executed, quite astonishing experience.  Waymo actually works.  The good news is that there was nobody at the steering wheel to fiddle with the radio, abduct one’s daughter, curse the traffic, or daydream about getting even with that idiot at the office. …

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