The fedora tipping is too funny, seeing it from outside the situation, but she certainly was very scared because it’s such a bizarre event.

I can see criminals easily exploiting this default behavior to stop the car and steal from those inside.

Where’s a Johnny cab when you need it, it knows how to deal with criminals.

Okay, this really seems more like a case of sexual harassment, rather than harassment of Waymo customers, which was my first suspicion. Had it been the latter as part of a politically motivated action against the company I might have had a lot more sympathy, but this is disgusting…

The victim’s statement here ends with an oddly volunteered tangent and specific praise of driverless vehicles, before it finally takes an eerie turn in the last sentence…

"…With that said, I think the Human Factor in this issue is going to be a lot harder to solve than anything else.” …FREEZE CITIZEN!

I do hope she’s okay, and those two folks seem to be clowns, but this thing also all reads as likely guerilla marketing for Waymo - who the article informs me, in a very capitalism-friendly turn of events, that they now have their service open to the public in 3 cities, cars have a safety feature that checked in with her multiple times and they “rewarded” her with an extra ride. It’s a light enough “crime”, with a very engineered feeling and enough to feel “real” while providing ready fodder for morning radio talk shows, Jimmy Fallon and good morning America talking heads to drone on about this morning across America as time filler that quietly advertises waymo “saving” a person from the scary outside world.

Note: Also, was very funny that throughout drafting my comment here “waymo” was constantly being autocorrected to “say no” :)

Just last week I had to run over some mother fuckers

It do be like that sometimes

we need more men willing to stand up for women.

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

Some guys were annoying/sexist to her while she participated in a public menace and I guess this is supposed to mean something to me beyond “stay away from California”

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?

That’s gotta be the cyberpunkiest thing I’ve read in a while.

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

Clearly that’s what a human driver would do, but I guess those Rider Support Agents work for free, so why not fire the driver? /s

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?

Waymo should provide a loaded shotgun in every car. It’s America, after all.

/s

I have to admit, I expected a lot worse from the style of writing. This was written like some true crime stuff lol

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.