The fact that the car was self-driven doesn't really affect any of this (the press just likes to publish rabble-rousing articles about Waymo because it gets clicks). Taxi drivers don't defend their customers on a regular basis.
Even if they don't defend their passengers, they like nearly all humans are interested in self preservation. If this person had presented a gun or other imminently dangerous situation, a taxi driver would surely flee. Would a self driven vehicle?
> The fact that the car was self-driven doesn't really affect any of this
Not sure if I follow. If I were driving I’d feel somewhat in control. But alone on the backseat somewhat more vulnerable. Without a driver in some situations even more so. In the moment I’d hope the drivers doors were locked but how to know for sure?
>The fact that the car was self-driven doesn't really affect any of this
That's a bit ridiculous. Of course it does; how many people do you know are OK with some random dudes making an ass of themselves in the middle of the street, blocking your right-of-way?
Should probably also disclose you work for Google when making such a statement about one of its products.
Generally, if I'm driving in SF (which I do on occasion) and somebody is making an ass of themselves int he middle of the street, I don't do anything. Moving the car often prompts such people to spend even more time in the street.
I don't work at Google. Why do you think I work at Google (I worked at Google, but not on self-driving cars; I am sympathetic to their mission, but also skeptical about the product's future). And even so, why would that matter? All I'm doing is pointing out there are systemic problems and having a driver in the car really wouldn't have addressed any of those.
As I said, I don't work at google. I worked at Google. I'm mainly curious how people identify me on HN (I've gotten email from folks who looked at my submissions to figure out my real life identity).
The reason I'm defending waymo is not that I worked at Google. It's that I think self-driving cars are a good idea and I don't want to see them invalidated through viral social media and "think of the children" press articles.
I think you must be misreading. You brought this up in the first place when you said "Should probably also disclose you work for Google when making such a statement about one of its products.". Before that, I did not say anything about Google, or imply that I worked there, in any way. The thread clearly shows this.
>I think you must be misreading. You brought this up in the first place when you said "Should probably also disclose you work for Google when making such a statement about one of its products.". Before that, I did not say anything about Google, or imply that I worked there, in any way. The thread clearly shows this.
Oh c'mon; are you just trolling now? Of course you didn't say that in this thread, but you did say it lol.
I mean, do you think I just made a wild guess that some random HN user worked for Google and happened to be right?
Yes, I did (originally) believe you made a wild guess. The alternatives (including what appears to be the actual truth... that you saw a comment I made some time ago on another thread) all seemed lower probability to me.
In this case, the driver would also be a victim and perhaps not stop for the people acting suspiciously, or try to drive off as soon as a threat is identified.
> fact that the car was self-driven doesn't really affect any of this
Not fundamentally. But therein lies the solution.
A driver would have yelled at and presumably threatened the young mean. The Waymo, in turn, could chastise the men over loudspeaker before turning it over to a remote human being who can remind the men that they’re being recorded.
That said, a driver can credibly threaten to impact someone threatening them or ram a car in a way self-driving vehicles cannot.
> The fact that the car was self-driven doesn't really affect any of this
Of course it does, watch the video. For one, having another person in the car might have made them behave differently. For another, a human could have safely driven around them. Plus, I doubt they’d be as eager to be douche bags in front of a car if they weren’t as sure they wouldn’t be hit.
Drive around how? To the left is the opposite side of the street (in which case the press would write an article about how a waymo drove wrong-way on the street), and the right lane is a bus lane (another article about waymo behavior badly).
What you are describing are speculative solutions that a human driver may have done. I think the problems here are systemic, and related more to caddish men than driverless cars.
You’re weirdly fixated on the on the press and Waymo. I specifically mentioned what a human driver could’ve done and your response was “if Waymo did it, the press would write about it”. You’re arguing against a straw man in your head, not what was said. And completely ignoring that the simple presence of another human could itself act as a deterrent.
> Drive around how?
For starters, there’s a period where they got out of the way and a human could’ve just… Continued to drive forward. Mind blowing, I know.
> and the right lane is a bus lane
Considering the amount of cars in the video that momentarily go over it and don’t burst into flames, it seems like a perfectly acceptable approach. But again, not even that would’ve been necessary.
I'm fixated on the press and waymo because this is an ongoing cycle of news: person has experience with waymo, puts it on social media, press covers it "oh look self driving cars can't work".
Now, on to the part where you mention a person could be a deterrent: if that's the case, society has far more problems than just a single self-driving car. In particular, doesn't that seem to imply that women in cars would need some sort of protector? I'm not going too deeply into the argument.
The reason the waymo didn't drive forward is that Google has programmed their cars to be exceptionally cautious- perhaps overly so- to stave off the huge negative press cycle that will happen when they hit or kill somebody in a dramatic way. Same for the bus lane- nobody at Waymo ever thought "Oh, we should violate some driving regulations to save a person from being harassed by assholes". That, like the trolley problem, is literally not something they are concerned with. Because self-driving cars aren't general intelligences designed to solve problems outside the "driving a person to a destination" problem.
This particular comment thread is about what would happen if this weren't a driverless car... Like GP, I'm a bit confused on why you're so focused on Waymo here?
> Now, on to the part where you mention a person could be a deterrent: if that's the case, society has far more problems than just a single self-driving car.
Yes, it does. You've surely stumbled on something new here...
I'm not sure what your point here could be. Because society treats women terribly, we should ignore ways our technology might put them in further danger, because... wahhh, bad media reporting about Waymo?
I don't think the people still saying self driving cars can't work have any sense of the scale Waymo is now operating at. At 100k+ trips per week, you could use the service in SF every day for your whole life and be unlikely to ever encounter any of these types of problems. I'd say it is essentially proven to work at this point.
> In particular, doesn't that seem to imply that women in cars would need some sort of protector?
No. You do realise women are human and can drive, right? And that men can be harassed too? The argument was about numbers, you’re weirdly making it about gender.
> The reason the waymo didn't drive forward
Is irrelevant. This conversation started because you said it didn’t make a difference that it was a self-driving car. Because a human could’ve made better decisions while still being safe, it follows that it being a self-driving car makes a difference. I’m not arguing that Waymo is wrong to be cautious, I’m just saying it is patently obvious that having a (current tech) robot or a human at the wheel does make a difference, despite your insistence that it doesn’t.
Of course I'm aware women drive- I'm currently teaching my daughter to drive in the SF Bay Area, and my wife drives 5X the miles I do, and 10X the miles in SF city). I considered writing my text above to include men (I don't want it to be about gender- although, in my experience, harassment of women by men is far more common, and people care about it a lot more).
I fully acknowledge that having a physical human driver at the wheel could lead to different outcomes. I do not agree those would necessarily be "better decisions". It looks like the things a human driver could do include: getting out and attacking the offenders (not something I expect my taxi driver to do), racing off (which comes with significant risk, of running people over, getting in an accident, violating regulations), yelling and/or gesticulating (unlikely to have much effect), and running over the offenders intentionally ("I was afraid for my life and moved forward slowly to give them time to move out of the way").
I think you're over-interpreting my statement and misunderstanding my intent. I hope to clarify: I don't think the safety of passengers from external adversaries is a legitimate reason to oppose self-driving cars, nor do I expect self-driving cars to handle external adversaries in the ways that a human driver might. I do expect over time that Waymo will reduce its safety buffers around people who are behaving aggressively.
They are saying that a random human driver would have more leeway. Griping that the press would have a field day with a Waymo car doing that isn't responsive to their point.
