The cars were clearly driving themselves. But what did happen fairly often was that they would get confused and stop.
For example, my Cruise car needed to make a right turn and a van had parked on the corner, sticking out into the perpendicular street. The Cruise car went up to the corner and then stopped. It was apparently not programmed to go further out into the street and also wasn't programmed to be allowed to turn if it couldn't see around the corner.
We sat there for a couple of minutes, then I called Cruise support. They did not notice the problem themselves until I called.
I suggested that they inch the car forward because I had the above hypothesis about why it wouldn't turn, but instead I was told to wait. After a couple of minutes, the car inched back a few feet. Then, after a pause in which I assume they were transferring control back to the car's computer, it went to the corner again and stopped.
I told them again that they should move it forward, not back. But after another couple of minutes they moved it back again. Again it went forward and stopped on the corner. They tried this at least three times before accepting my suggestion. As soon as the car was able to see around the corner, it took off again, clearly under its own power.
So I don't think it's a case of remote drivers operating the cars, it's a case of remote drivers having to intervene when the cars stopped, and even in that case they try to make the cars do it on their own.
This is not Theranos behavior. This is debugging.