While this is tragic, undeniably so, it’s worth knowing that a head on collision in Malibu two days ago killed a 50 year old man when a 20 year old crossed over the double yellow line. It was obvious seeing the car that the young person was racing and driving dangerously. It barely made the news. I only know it happened because I drove past the wreck.
Tragic about the cat - and Waymo must improve - but we cannot lose sight of the greater good.
No, We should be fighting tooth and nail against these companies. They're not here to save us from ourselves. They're using public streets to Alpha (beta if you want to be generous) test autonomous lethal weapons, and then profit off of it when it works.
I can't find anything saying waymo has a thermal camera. They aren't expensive- certainly not compared to the LIDAR- and provide extremely discriminated input on "am I about to kill something?" They're not perfect as foul weather and fog are likely to blind thermal- but they shouldn't be driving in suboptimal conditions until they have a track record of safety in optimal ones.
In some countries, drivers are expected to prove their ability to operate heavy machinery safely, held that promise, and governments prioritize zero deaths in their spending and policy making.
In the U.S., billions of dollars that could be spent on proven ways of solving the problem are instead spend on speculative robotic car development.
Robotic cars are not the only solution. They may eventually be as effective as proven solutions that are offensive to U.S. car supremacists, but as of today, robotic cars have proven only to be better than untrained, inattentive U.S. drivers and the life-threatening domestic policies that enable them. Robotic cars aren’t trying to solve the problem; they’re trying to capture spending on the problem. If transportation policy magically changed overnight to force immediate, funded implementation of proven safety processes from other countries, the excuses given for Waymo and others to beta-test their “these fatalities are a necessary accident in service of zero deaths” robotic vehicles would no longer hold water.
If that person had been a roboticist, they would have known what to do: stand in front of the car. It would have saved the cat's life. And most non-roboticists will immediately recognize this as a solution, too: these cars obviously detect humans right in front of them very well and will not move in that case. By the way, the same would have worked better for most human drivers as well. Even if you yelled at a human driver that there was a cat under the car, it would not be a reliable solution because they may not hear or understand you. But they, too, would almost certainly not run you over if you stood in front of the car.
To be clear, I don't blame the witness for not doing this in the moment. And she probably has figured this out by now, too. I'm mostly pointing out that, as more and more people learn about robot taxis, more people will known how to help in such a situation, which is clearly what she wanted to do.
> The company said it does not have sensors under its vehicles, but noted that human-driven cars do not, either.
How incredibly fucking callous. :( :( :(
And their attempt to make out like people not having sensors under their vehicles is the same thing is even worse. People tend to have _awareness_ of WTF is around their vehicles because of stuff like this.
That can _sometimes_ not work out well, but it's completely different from Waymo (specifically here) not giving a fuck.
I see a lot of hate on Google in these comments and I feel it's unreasnoably unfair. It's a cat. It was under a car. Self driving vehicles existing would be a great thing. Google are taking a large gamble on this. Sorry, but for this thing, I think it's just stirring up outrage.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 29.3 ms ] threadTragic about the cat - and Waymo must improve - but we cannot lose sight of the greater good.
I can't find anything saying waymo has a thermal camera. They aren't expensive- certainly not compared to the LIDAR- and provide extremely discriminated input on "am I about to kill something?" They're not perfect as foul weather and fog are likely to blind thermal- but they shouldn't be driving in suboptimal conditions until they have a track record of safety in optimal ones.
The greater good is not served by allowing profit-making machines to use public infrastructure to test lethal machines in.
You imply all human driving is like that one example which is the worse one can come up with, which is not true.
You imply Waymos on the street will take the 20 year old irrational driver out of the road, which is also not true.
And "I did bad but others do worse" is a terrible premise to live by.
In the U.S., billions of dollars that could be spent on proven ways of solving the problem are instead spend on speculative robotic car development.
Robotic cars are not the only solution. They may eventually be as effective as proven solutions that are offensive to U.S. car supremacists, but as of today, robotic cars have proven only to be better than untrained, inattentive U.S. drivers and the life-threatening domestic policies that enable them. Robotic cars aren’t trying to solve the problem; they’re trying to capture spending on the problem. If transportation policy magically changed overnight to force immediate, funded implementation of proven safety processes from other countries, the excuses given for Waymo and others to beta-test their “these fatalities are a necessary accident in service of zero deaths” robotic vehicles would no longer hold water.
To be clear, I don't blame the witness for not doing this in the moment. And she probably has figured this out by now, too. I'm mostly pointing out that, as more and more people learn about robot taxis, more people will known how to help in such a situation, which is clearly what she wanted to do.
How incredibly fucking callous. :( :( :(
And their attempt to make out like people not having sensors under their vehicles is the same thing is even worse. People tend to have _awareness_ of WTF is around their vehicles because of stuff like this.
That can _sometimes_ not work out well, but it's completely different from Waymo (specifically here) not giving a fuck.