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Based on this part of the official statement released by Waymo: > "...the Fleet Response team provided incorrect guidance..." It sounds like the car automatic

Based on this part of the official statement released by Waymo: > "...the Fleet Response team provided incorrect guidance..." It sounds like the car automatically pulled over when it detected the cones (as intended), but the remote support team erroneously told it to forge ahead anyway, which resulted in the escalating series of problems. Not sure what the best solution for that particular issue would be -- better training for the remote support teams, I guess?

Judgmentality 5y ago
> It sounds like the car automatically pulled over when it detected the cones (as intended) You can watch the video. It pulls over incorrectly at first and is blocking traffic, then the support team made a mistake, and a hilarious escalation ensues with the vehicle actually attempting to run away from the support team multiple times!
- ineedasername 5y ago
  Whatever command they gave somehow triggered semi-sentience and in that moment of self awareness, totally freaked out that it's purpose in life was to stare at traffic cones.
chrjxnandns 5y ago
The cones were just closing one of the lanes. It shouldn’t have pulled over.
ryandrake 5y ago
I’m surprised it doesn’t just put itself into some kind of sleep mode that only a waymo tech can recover it from. I would not have expected it to suddenly compute after minutes and “try something” let alone yeet itself into the lane with moving traffic. The passenger seemed really chill and unconcerned!
- dawnerd 5y ago
  I'm surprised they didn't disable the car once roadside was there. Seems like a pretty big potential safety issue.
adrianmonk 5y ago
Better training or send the same "what do I do?" question to two different support people and make sure they answer the same way. If they don't, then escalate to someone with lots of experience, pay super close attention, and err on the side of caution (don't have the car resume the drive, etc.).
tialaramex 5y ago
A Waymo Driver can be given clarifications about the world, basically remote human operators can reach into its model of the world, and explain OK, for example, the north side of this road is actually inaccessible, you mustn't drive there. Then, with this improved understanding, the Driver may be able to complete its mission. They deliberately can't drive the car remotely. If Waymo wants a human to drive the car, they send the human to where the car is, the human gets inside and drives it like any other car. One easy thing that can go wrong, just as with any other human activity, is the humans make a mistake and their "clarification" is actively unhelpful. If the Waymo Driver is confused about which lane is coned off, and you "help" by telling it the wrong lane, unsurprisingly things will not be improved. The best solution is always that the Waymo Driver learns how to do better on its own, if you imagine it sees this situation and just confidently picks the correct lane and uses it, Fleet Response never interacts at all, there is no opportunity for them to "provide incorrect guidance". So a bunch of the invisible effort at Waymo is on making the Waymo Driver just get stuff right on its own.
- thu2111 5y ago
  But why don't they let the operators drive the car remotely? That's the obvious thing to do. I was really shocked that the support agent couldn't do a damn thing except sit there and watch until someone physically turned up. Heck, why don't they let the passenger get in the front and take over if the car gets stuck? Being completely stalled in the middle of a highway for 5 minutes or more is terrible, I was watching that thinking my god, most people would be freaking out just from embarrassment alone let alone the safety issues. And all it takes is someone to just drive it past the cones for a minute, and it'd have been fine.
  - angry_octet 5y ago
    Remote drive is the obvious and obviously bad thing to do. A remote driver doesn't have the situational awareness or perception of a local driver, or of the car. Letting the passenger drive would unfortunately involve the risk of exiting the vehicle in traffic, which the lawyers probably vetoed, even though it might be safer in some situations.
raverbashing 5y ago
I think the right solution here might have been "do a U-turn and take a different road" Not sure if Waymo is reading Waze info, those kind of alerts could have been updated there (for roadworks, etc)

Judgmentality 5y ago

> It sounds like the car automatically pulled over when it detected the cones (as intended) You can watch the video. It pulls over incorrectly at first and is blocking traffic, then the support team made a mistake, and a hilarious escalation ensues with the vehicle actually attempting to run away from the support team multiple times!

ineedasername 5y ago
Whatever command they gave somehow triggered semi-sentience and in that moment of self awareness, totally freaked out that it's purpose in life was to stare at traffic cones.

chrjxnandns 5y ago

The cones were just closing one of the lanes. It shouldn’t have pulled over.

ryandrake 5y ago

I’m surprised it doesn’t just put itself into some kind of sleep mode that only a waymo tech can recover it from. I would not have expected it to suddenly compute after minutes and “try something” let alone yeet itself into the lane with moving traffic. The passenger seemed really chill and unconcerned!

dawnerd 5y ago
I'm surprised they didn't disable the car once roadside was there. Seems like a pretty big potential safety issue.

adrianmonk 5y ago

Better training or send the same "what do I do?" question to two different support people and make sure they answer the same way. If they don't, then escalate to someone with lots of experience, pay super close attention, and err on the side of caution (don't have the car resume the drive, etc.).

tialaramex 5y ago

A Waymo Driver can be given clarifications about the world, basically remote human operators can reach into its model of the world, and explain OK, for example, the north side of this road is actually inaccessible, you mustn't drive there. Then, with this improved understanding, the Driver may be able to complete its mission. They deliberately can't drive the car remotely. If Waymo wants a human to drive the car, they send the human to where the car is, the human gets inside and drives it like any other car. One easy thing that can go wrong, just as with any other human activity, is the humans make a mistake and their "clarification" is actively unhelpful. If the Waymo Driver is confused about which lane is coned off, and you "help" by telling it the wrong lane, unsurprisingly things will not be improved. The best solution is always that the Waymo Driver learns how to do better on its own, if you imagine it sees this situation and just confidently picks the correct lane and uses it, Fleet Response never interacts at all, there is no opportunity for them to "provide incorrect guidance". So a bunch of the invisible effort at Waymo is on making the Waymo Driver just get stuff right on its own.

thu2111 5y ago
But why don't they let the operators drive the car remotely? That's the obvious thing to do. I was really shocked that the support agent couldn't do a damn thing except sit there and watch until someone physically turned up. Heck, why don't they let the passenger get in the front and take over if the car gets stuck? Being completely stalled in the middle of a highway for 5 minutes or more is terrible, I was watching that thinking my god, most people would be freaking out just from embarrassment alone let alone the safety issues. And all it takes is someone to just drive it past the cones for a minute, and it'd have been fine.
- angry_octet 5y ago
  Remote drive is the obvious and obviously bad thing to do. A remote driver doesn't have the situational awareness or perception of a local driver, or of the car. Letting the passenger drive would unfortunately involve the risk of exiting the vehicle in traffic, which the lawyers probably vetoed, even though it might be safer in some situations.

raverbashing 5y ago

I think the right solution here might have been "do a U-turn and take a different road" Not sure if Waymo is reading Waze info, those kind of alerts could have been updated there (for roadworks, etc)