In President Trump's view, self-driving cars are a menace to society. A skeptic of cutting-edge technology — as his tweets about Boeing's "complex" planes emphasized — Trump has privately said he thinks the autonomous vehicle (AV) revolution is "crazy" and that he'd never let a computer drive him around.
Why it matters: Most Americans share Trump's view: 71% of U.S. drivers would be afraid to ride in a self-driving vehicle, per AAA. Yet his own administration is encouraging AV development by removing barriers and issuing voluntary guidance instead of regulations. And we see no evidence Trump has imposed his personal views on the policy process.
Less than a year ago, Recode's Kurt Wagner could write a story saying that "no one in Facebook’s upper ranks ever seems to leave the company." That's not true anymore.
Driving the news: Facebook's #3 executive, Chris Cox, left this week, along with Chris Daniels, who ran WhatsApp. Daniels himself was running the messaging subsidiary only because both of the app's co-founders had already departed — as have Instagram's co-founders.
Ethiopia’s Transport Minister Dagmawit Moges said Sunday that information retrieved from the "black boxes" of the Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed last week shows "clear similarities" to that from October's Lion Air crash in Indonesia, the Washington Post reports.
The big picture: The revelation will almost certainly add more pressure on aircraft maker Boeing, as both crashes involved its brand new 737 Max 8 aircraft. The FAA, along with aviation regulators in at least 40 countries, have grounded Boeing 737 MAX aircraft indefinitely pending the results of this investigation and a fix to what may be a software problem from Boeing. Moges said that the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board was also involved in the analysis and that a preliminary report will be released within 30 days.
Amazon's bid to build a second headquarters in northern Virginia was overwhelmingly approved Saturday, according to The Washington Post.
The details: Arlington County Board voted unanimously to approve a $23 million incentives package for the tech giant to establish a center in Crystal City. Protesters shouted "shame" as the board voted 5-0 in favor of the move, the Post reported. In February, Amazon canceled plans to build a portion of HQ2 in New York City.
As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sets out on an ambitious but challenging effort to remake the social network, he will be doing so without 2 of the company's seasoned veterans.
Driving the news: Facebook announced the exit of product chief Chris Cox and WhatsApp head Chris Daniels on Thursday.
In two years observing surgeons in teaching hospitals, social scientist Matthew Beane noticed something troubling: doctors were finishing their residencies licensed to use robots in the operating room, but most were barely trained to do so.
The big picture: At fault, Beane reported, is how hospitals have introduced machines and artificial intelligence to the workplace — a way that has left a large part of the new generation of doctors lacking crucial surgery skills.
