This is why driverless cars are a bad idea, they assume that everything will work as intended and everyone will play by the rules.
You need a human to make a snap decision in cases like these.
I hope these men are arrested for sexual solicitation via coercion (could be tried as attempted rape in the right state), disrupting traffic, sexual harassment, public disturbance. Fuck em, or better yet, don’t fuck em, they’re unfuck worthy.
What were these morons thinking? I’m sex positive as hell, I’m all for bringing back the free love of the 70’s and the LSD of the 60’s, but not like this, never anything like this… Hypothetically bro say you do get her number this way?
The fuck happens next?
“Hey remember me, I’m the dipshit who pressured you into giving me this number by trapping you in your car via exploitation of its safety features? So I’ll pick you up at 7 for a romantic candlelit dinner and afterwards we could go see a movi…” click “Hello? Damn, friendzoned again.”
Na driverless cars are the future and tens of thousands of people will be saved from car accident deaths per year once most cars are automated. And this may happen in my lifetime which is cool.
You have a bad take imo.
And it only takes one driverless car having a bug or some kind of user error to fuck it up for every body.
A man can notice a mistake and correct it, a machine will continue as if everything is fine.
I’m just telling you how it is, people’s feelings on this won’t stop the march of progress. Machines will take over most driving tasks, it’s inevitable.
“A man can notice a mistake and correct it, a machine will continue as if everything is fine.” Even if this is 100% true you already say yourself that machine driving will still be safer “user error to fuck it up for every body.” User error will 100% be why autonomous vehicles will be overall significantly safer to use and be around vs manual driving vehicles.
Again, machines don’t realize a mistake has been made, people do
Let’s not go too far overboard. These guys are assholes who deserve some consequences. However the article didn’t include anything that looked like attempted rape, nothing violent, no direct threat of harm (indirect, maybe). Let’s try to be proportional here
Definitely a false imprisonment charge though
I guess I missed the part where you’re not free to literally get out of the car and leave?
Edit: the two guys definitely deserve harassment and disturbing the peace charges.
If you’re a female, you are going to get out of the car to get in the street and hang out with these 2 males harassing you on the street? She’s definitely safer in the car. The 2 males are keeping her prisoner in the car against her will. the car cannot leave, and she cannot get out.
Driverless cars can work if enough vehicles are replaced with them. I agree that a few driverless cars in a sea of regular drivers is not optimal though.
A few years back at the height of driverless car mania, I was feeling cynical toward my fellow human beings ……
It’ll be a bonanza for the assholes of the world when we’re mostly self-driving vehicles. Imagine being able to cut anyone off in safety and with no consequences. Imagine driving as aggressively as you want as other cars get out of your way. Imagine being able to drive like in an action movie with the confidence that everyone will just get out of your way. Imagine that feeling of power and importance as you own the road , in your sad pathetic life
These cars need to have a panic button that allows a remote operator to talk to the passengers, assess the situation, alert police and override the auto driving to get them out of bad situations. Same as an emergency call button on an elevator basically. I dont understand these cars to have any feature like that so far, and I’m assuming this woman would have used it if one was available, so please correct me if I’m wrong.
These cars are likely going to turn into hijack machines if they’re programmed for “maximum safety” in situations where, realistically, breaking every traffic law, hitting a pedestrian or causing damage to the vehicle through dangerous terrain may be the only way out with a living passenger. The second it begins to percolate among criminals that these things are super easy to stop at the perfect location of your choosing like this, they are going to become a massive target.
Or they turn into a hearse if the passenger has a medical emergency and the car doesn’t redirect while the passenger is incapacitated. They might be coherent enough to press a button, but not to open their phone, navigate the app, call for help or redirect the car to a hospital…
But that of course requires labor so it will not happen until legally mandated after a minimum threshold of people die.
Considering the length of your comment, you could have started by reading the article.
“The men came over to the car again and stood in front of it for a few minutes. Finally when they left, the car was still stalled but I clicked the ‘in car support’ on the screen and they seemed to be aware of the issue,” Amina said. “They asked if I was OK and the car began to drive towards my location. They asked if I needed police support and I said no.”
When she was almost to her destination, Waymo support called her again to ask if she was ok, she said. “I assured him that I was fine and he told me I would be given a free ride after,” she said. “After many hours I was called one last time by their support team. They asked if I was OK and told me that they have 24/7 support available. They also said I would get the next ride or next two rides (uncertain) free.”
“In an instance like this, our riders have 24/7 access to Rider Support agents who will help them navigate the situation in real time and coordinate closely with law enforcement officers to provide further assistance as needed,” a spokesperson for Waymo told 404 Media in an email. “While these sorts of events are exceedingly rare among the 100,000 trips we serve a week across Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix, we take them very seriously. We continuously look for ways to improve rider experience and remain committed to improving road safety and mobility in the cities where we operate.”
they should have [thing that already exists]
Nobody reads the article though…
It’s blocked for me unless i want to sign up. And I don’t for one article.
They have customer support that provides words of platitude, an ineffective police call with a 15minute response time, and no control over the situation. She got lucky this time, but my point remains standing.
They should have a support chopper that you can call in
Hello, customer support?..Yes, air strike on my location, thank you
Agreed, but to play devil’s advocate, the support wasn’t branded as such and customers could’ve not reported out of shame, which wouldn’t happen if they knew they could do that at the beginning before it became anything substantial.
Honestly a proper panic button would have an alarm go off and speed dial 911. But I’m sure people would abuse it.
She talked to an operator who asked if he should call the police and she said no. It’s in the article.
Not sure what a button would have changed…
override the auto driving
I must be tired right now but I don’t see how a remote operator could have driven better in this situation.
You can’t get away from someone blocking your car in traffic without risk.of hitting them or other people or vehicles.
You probably meant they ought to drive away regardless of what they hit, if it helps the passenger escape a.dire.situation? But I have to wonder if a remote operator would agree to be put on the spot like that.
I can’t think of a NY cab driver that couldn’t have handled this situation.
This guy isn’t doing fedoras any favors either - I’m already a bit on the skeptical side when I see a fedora.
Fedoras haven’t done anyone any favors ever.
If a man jumps out in front of my car in traffic and points a pistol at me after I stop. I am going around or thru him and there is no other option. Anyone else trying to stop me even without visible weapons is going to get evasive maneuvers to protect myself because I am not dealing with that bullshit. That includes weaving far outside my travel lane or going over a sidewalk. That is self defense and a split second decision that any driver may have to make. Waymo prioritizes all outside obstacle avoidance which means it doesn’t even want to leave it’s set travel lane, which makes them trivial to stop like this with no recourse.
The point I am making is that self driving has a really hard time interpreting traffic edge cases or passenger emergencies like this. A remote operator could make the decision to drive over curbs and other lanes, if free, to save the passenger, and realistically should avoid hitting pedestrians too… but in the case of an armed attacker - well, yknow. Like force for like force.
Calling police would only be an auxiliary function to report the video evidence. They cannot be depended on to respond in time to actually make a difference.
Would a remote operator interpret things accurately in 10 seconds or less, or be a job anyone would even want? How does the liability chain of command work? Who knows. But the current system makes no decision at all, and that is unacceptable. And the medical point still stands too, a remote operator could immediately reroute the vehicle to a hospital and alert the medical staff. A panic button is absolutely needed.
Yea I’m not too keen on giving authorization to hit pedestrians. If I feel threatened in my car, I am not allowed to run over the person so why should a driverless car gain that right? And if the panic button is going to call the police, how is that any different from the passenger using their phone to contact police? Seems like extra steps of middlemen and confusion when the passenger could just call once they feel the need.
I could defintely see a case for some extra safety features that help keep the doors locked and shut, maybe thicker windows too if needed to prevent robberies/assaults.
The “hitting pedestrians” is an extreme hypothetical, and not one you should particularly get hung up on. But it is one that still has to be considered. Passive security measures only go so far for the passenger.
Realistically, a car can get out of a vast majority of situations evasively without hitting hostile pedestrians, such as reversing rapidly and then turning around or driving in an opposite travel lane to bypass the blockage. Or hopping a curb and using a sidewalk if it is not occupied (or just blasting the shit out of the horn if it is occupied). These are all things that waymo’s auto mode cannot and will not do, because it doesn’t have the reasoning to understand when such measures are necessary.
If you legitimately believe your life is in danger, you have the right to escape or defend yourself, even if that means running someone over. This has happened in multiple countries with similar outcomes.
And if the panic button is going to call the police, how is that any different from the passenger using their phone to contact police? Seems like extra steps of middlemen and confusion when the passenger could just call once they feel the need.
Think of it as a backup for the phone in the case where, say, there’s an adult and a kid in the car, the kid has no phone of their own, and the adult loses consciousness with their phone locked. Or the car is being actively jostled by a group of people (say it drove into the middle of an embryonic riot), causing the passenger to drop their phone, whereupon it slides under the seat. Or the phone just runs out of charge or doesn’t survive getting dropped into the passenger’s triple-extra-large fast-food coffee. It won’t be needed 99% of the time, but the other 1% might save someone’s life, and (presuming the car already has a cell modem it in) the cost of adding the feature should be minimal.
If you are in literal, actual mortal danger you are generally allowed to escape with the goal of escape. Especially relevant where waymo operates.
If I feel threatened in my car, I am not allowed to run over the person
You are not allowed to run people over merely because you feel threatened.
You are allowed to use deadly force, in the USA when you reasonably believe that it is necessary to prevent someone from unlawfully killing, causing serious physical injury, or committing a short list of violent felonies. The harassment described in the article probably does not rise to that level, though an ambitious lawyer might try to describe intentionally causing the car to stop as carjacking or kidnapping.
probably
Yeah somehow I don’t think tipping a fedora counts lol
It’s likely the harassers can be prosecuted for false imprisonment, a misdemeanor. It is illegal to use deadly force such as hitting people with cars to prevent/terminate a misdemeanor.
Is there any law in any state that would allow you to kill a 3rd party to escape being killed yourself? (If there were, I’d probably opt for not living in that state)
I vaguely remember reading in my criminal law textbook, years back, that murder is one of the few exceptions to the doctrine of necessity (this would have been in the context of US law), so I don’t think that it’s ever legally-permissible to intentionally kill some random person to save yourself. IIRC the rationale was that it prevents thing like terrorist groups from coercing someone to do actions for them by threatening someone else.
That being said, there are obviously points where people are forced to take actions where either one group of people is going to die or another; in ethics, the trolley problem is a well-known example. For a maybe-less-artificial problem, closing hatches in a ship where not everyone is out of a compartment to prevent the ship from going down, say. I don’t know how law applies in the situation of weighing lives; my assumption is that it doesn’t mandate inaction.
What do you mean by “allow you to kill a 3rd party”?
Like if rioters are breaking into your window and start trying to pull you out through it, then you floor it and kill someone else in the crowd who wasn’t actively breaking into your car?
This is something that’s going to vary from state to state, but ultimately it will be a case by case decision where a jury will decide if the use of deadly force was reasonable.
You will be judged based on other’s perception of the events, not based solely whether you yourself thought you were in danger or not.
So, someone trying to “drive slowly” through a group of protesters would probably be found at fault, while a car that was stuck trying to wait patiently suddenly having a Molotov cocktail thrown on it would be judged differently. Even then they will need to consider whether you could have just gotten out of your car and run.
Sure, there are some states that let you mag dump through your front door if someone rings the doorbell
I’m hitting them. I don’t know their intentions. But my intent would be to get away however I can.
What are you going on about? Have you ever ridden in one of these?
They do have these buttons…
It sounds like Waymo were already aware of the situation, in fact they called her in the vehicle as it was happening.
Not to say this isn’t a good suggestion, but they seem to have other systems in place that worked.
It worked, only because these men were only being creepy sexist pieces of shit and didn’t have worse intentions. Customer support according to this article has no control over the vehicle other than restarting the auto driving routines to make the car move again.
They do, she only used it after they were gone.
They have a button on the center-front thingy but it’s not labeled panic or anything.
Well and the draw of these tiny driverless train like objects kinda goes out the window when you have to staff anything at all to monitor and control them.
I’d expect the Waymo video to have captured footage of these guys. It might not be that difficult to track them, and street harassment might well qualify as assault if the DA of San Francisco were interested in prosecuting.
That said, it’s telling that they freely and openly harassed a strange woman on the street once the threat of being run over was not a factor.
ETA: One short-term workaround is to tint the windows so that passengers cannot be seen from the outside, but there might be causes to harass occupied Waymo vehicles regardless of the passenger (say, to mug them). I’m curious if this is going to lead to equipping autonomous vehicles with anti-riot ordnance.
Delamin Cabs vibe over here, hope people get the Excelsior package
Waymo offering human remains delivery services should death occur on your journey
It seems like Waymo would have a profit interest to pursue this type of issue vigorously.
One of the men repeatedly made a “call me” gesture with his hand, then took his fedora off and literally tipped it at her…
It’s assholes like this that make dudes in fedoras look bad. This and -you know- the hats themselves.
Fedoras are cool. That’s a trilby, the classic neckbeard topper.
ItsTheSamePicture.jpg
Fedoras are cool.
Lmao
I love how he looks like 2 different types of douchebags when he takes his hat off!
I have to admit, I expected a lot worse from the style of writing. This was written like some true crime stuff lol
404 don’t miss. Best tech journoing in the biz imho
Doing things like this when you’re certainly being recorded is a great idea. Wait, hold on…
waiting for the name & shame. what an absolute tosser
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Just last week I had to run over some mother fuckers
It do be like that sometimes
They are quite lucky that woman was not my mother because she’d have pulled out her gun and been like, I told you to move, damnit.
What part of Texas is she from?
The texas part
The not-Austin part?
Did they stutter?
This is how you get shot for the silliest of reasons.
That’s pretty stupid of her.
Without hesitation, because she is brandishing a weapon, anyone else simply watching the scene from a distance feeling even slightly any emotion is justified to shoot her to death as a form of self defense.
Never draw a weapon unless the intent is to use it, and in her case she would only intend to use it as a threat not a deterrence, and therefore deserves to die in this imaginary scenario.
Do you have any idea how deranged this sounds to the rest of the world
It’s deranged to Americans too. This guy is nutso.
Do you think it’s normal to see a civilian draw a weapon and point it to another one? First thing I would think is that she’s gonna kill them, but I’m not American.
Sure, but that doesn’t necessarily present a danger to you, and if it’s clear that she’s shooting as self-defense (and I think two young men accosting an elderly woman while physically preventing the car from moving qualifies), there’s no reason for you to feel threatened.
If we put it in a non-gun context, let’s say grandma pulls out a knife to defend herself from these men, and then someone sees that and immediately pulls a knife of their own and engages. Why would you do that? It’s incredibly unlikely that grandma is going on a killing spree or anything, she just wants to defend herself from these aggressive individuals.
anyone else simply watching the scene from a distance feeling even slightly any emotion is justified to shoot her to death as a form of self defense
That really depends on your area and what witnesses exist to corroborate your testimony. You can’t just “say” you felt endangered just because a gun was drawn, it needs to pass the “reasonable person” standard (i.e. would a theoretical “reasonable person” feel threatened in this scenario?). I’m guessing an elderly woman pointing a firearm at an individual who is clearly harassing her doesn’t present a danger to a reasonable person who isn’t in the line of fire.
That said, if the elderly woman appears jumpy or something, maybe there’s a case. But it’s not an open-and-shut case like shooting someone who is taking hostages or something.
Source: am American in gun-friendly state who reads news articles about justified and unjustified shooting cases.
Wait so the people that are justified to shoot her to death, would I be justified to shoot them since they’re pulling weapons too? Is it then open season on me
Yes. This is why brandishing a weapon is so fucking stupid, and why cops always get a wrist slap after shooting first instead of asking questions or deescalate.
I’m sorry but doing creepy shit like stopping the car a stranger is in to freak them out is what actually gets you shot in America. Th3se two are lucky this woman wasn’t a red blooded american.
This made me wonder though…the car obviously has cameras on the outside, and there’s also a way to communicate with the support team from inside…so is it a stretch to think that these cars could be auto-recording everything that’s happening inside the car?
Should we - as riders - have any expectation of privacy in a car with no driver?
No, but then the same is true of taxis and Ubers. They all have some kind of recording equipment in them for ensuring safety and cover in case someone claims something.
You should never expect privacy in someone else’s car.
Some nasty jerks they are. Well now internationally famous nasty jerks.
Give it a couple of years they’ll legalise running down pedestrians for self drive cars. Can’t have these jackalopes affecting the bottom line
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Cruise was testing that feature.
In the past, autonomous vehicle development dwelled on the ethical hypothetical situations like “do you hit an old lady crossing the road in order to avoid crashing into a schoolbus full of children?”, but what about safety hypotheticals? Like, if you were actually driving your vehicle, there are moments when it’s in your best interest to not be at a stop, such as when people are physically surrounding your car and potentially mean to cause you harm, which is extremely common in America. When does the driverless car get you out of a tight spot and run over some carjackers if need be?
Edit: To respond to everyone saying I’m full of shit, and that carjackings aren’t common, there were more than 500 carjackings in NYC alone in 2021. New Orleans had 281 in 2021. 800 carjackings in Philly in 2021. 1800 carjackings in Chicago in 2021. Tell me, is that not enough carjackings to warrant asking my question?
How the fuck do you figure that’s “extremely common”? You need to spend less time on the Internet my dude …
I’ve provided data for you in my original comment.
Extremely common? Really?
Yes. I’ve provided data for you in my original comment.
The only thing I’d be curious about with these numbers is car jackings vs the amount of cars/drivers on the road. That would give a percentage and let us know how common it is.
And how many of the carjackings were high-value targets like delivery vans, or in sketchy high-crime parts of the city.
500 carjackings in NYC in a year? Oh the humanity.
There’s literally a million cars on the road on any given day just in lower Manhattan.
Get a sense of scale.
10k pedestrians get hit by cars and trucks in NYC every year and you’re worried about the health and safety of 500 carjackers (probably fewer, given potential for repeat offenders). What in the actual fuck?
I suppose they’re extremely common in comparison to other countries. I’ve never heard of them happening in mine since the 90s when we actually had violent crime.
We still have car theft, it’s just that they get stolen while parked.
Extremely common in absolute terms? Hell nah, there are a lot of unpleasant things more likely to happen to you in the US than carjackings.
It’s definitely not extremely common.
I’ve provided data for you in my original comment.
You guys are talking past one another. It’s extremely common at a population level insofar as its happening literally many times per day at the population level. It is not extremely likely at the individual level because the vehicle miles driven per carjacking is massive with most people never getting car jacked.
If an AI car ever has to make a decision on who dies, the answer should always be “whoever agreed to the terms and conditions before they got in the vehicle”.
And there it is
This will never be the case. Because nobody will buy an overpriced “yo, if there’s ever any doubt about, like, anything - just put a bullet in my head” machine. So nobody will sell it.
Face it - you have the same thousands of pounds of metal today, and you’re the only one making decisions. You (drivers, as a community) have killed before, for selfish reasons: because you don’t want to die is the least selfish of them. Other hits include “didn’t wanna not get drunk with the homies”, “I really needed to answer that text” and “I have 10 minutes till home but the game starts in 5, it’s my favorite team, I can make it”. And you somehow seem to want non-drivers (passengers of AI cars) to have the same expectation that they will be a victim even when they get a car?
Drivers are so self-centered it’s goddamn ridiculous.
Ah yes, drivers are self-centered for checks notes not wanting pedestrians to be hit by self-driving cars
Nah man. I’ll rephrase:
Drivers are self-centered because:
- they are one of the leading causes of death, and they convinced the world their convenience is worth it
- they believe that they literally know better than AI and are better suited to have power over life and death
- they’re out here tryna say passengers of AI cars should sign up to die automatically, when drivers are actually the ones who are today responsible for all deaths by car
I made it easier to understand, hope it helps.
At present most drivers do know better than most driving AIs
I’m talking about pedestrians, not other drivers.
If autonomous vehicles can’t be trusted not to run people over, then they shouldn’t be allowed to go above like 20mph in a built up area where there’s likely to be people walking about. And frankly neither should human drivers, but good luck not getting them to call it a “war on motorists” if you try.
Surely you can just take over? You can’t expect the car to run people over for you lol
The Waymo car wouldn’t let the woman take over.
Yeah I misread before I commented, I didn’t know robot taxis were a thing, Jesus…
Let’s not call them “men” please, they lost their right to be counted amongst men with this behavior.
No, these are men, and the men are not alright…
Nope they’re boys with pubes. Pubes don’t make you a man, strength of character does.
I think you missed the point
JFC, they don’t cease to be men because they’re assholes. Stop pretending that ‘men’ can’t do anything wrong. There is no man card and men are a diverse group of people.
I never said men can’t do anything wrong.
What I meant was “boys” will treat women like this. “men” won’t. It’s just a term. Not to be interpreted literally. And also, this isn’t to assume men are exempt from making mistakes, we’re all human and we’re all flawed, but it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to know that treating ANYONE like this isn’t something that is defined as “a mistake.”
Bollocks. Plenty of men do these things, it doesn’t make them boys.
Yes. It does. If we’re inaccurately defining the term “men” as a gender only, then what they do is entirely irrelevant- as behavior isn’t defined by gender. But that’s not what I’m doing here.
I’m taking about the term “men” as one being a grown adult. And grown adults don’t behave this way. children that don’t know better do. Don’t get wrapped up in absolutes here. It’s just a play on words tweak of terminology.
Men know better.
EDIT: autocorrect is a monster!
Grown adults behave this way all the time, and plenty of them know better, they just dont care. You are being absurd.
Do you honestly think that I am assuming these people are actually children? Do you think that I don’t understand the difference between a small child and an adult? Is it possible that I’m accusing them of being immature little kids for messing in such an appalling manner by taking away their ability to be seen as men?
Or do you think that maybe you’re taking my comment to the extreme literal for the because you like to argue?
I’ll let you think about that for a little while and come back to this.
Why the need to stop seeing them as men? Why the need to redefine men behaving badly as boys? It seems like you can’t accept that some men behave this way so you want to pretend they’re not really men.
