8 ms·

Waymo sues state DMV to keep robotaxi safety details secret

102 points by georgecmu 5y ago

joenathanone 5y ago
These vehicles are driving on public roads, this information needs to be public.
- onion2k 5y ago
  The implication of your post is that you think it should be possible to find out everything that happens on public roads, included things like where you drove your car, what accidents you've had, and whether you've broken any traffic laws. That would be quite an extreme point of view. Roads are public in the sense that they're paid for by the public, and open to the public, but that surely shouldn't extend to the public being allowed to track everything that happens on them. There should be some limit on gathering information about public spaces.
  - cscurmudgeon 5y ago
    The false equivalence is assuming algorithms are people and deserve privacy.
    - TrueDuality 5y ago
      That statement slaps of some existential philosophy that will probably need to be addressed at some point... For this context though I agree, we as a society should have the right to inspect any algorithm that makes safety or life altering decisions (looking at you "AI" judges) about your person or in public spaces you might reasonably occupy. I do think data used by an algorithm, or even potentially data that was used to train an algorithm should have a reasonable expectation of privacy. The trained weights do become part of the algorithm in my humble opinion, and that does potentially lead to leakage about the source data, but that doesn't justify not allowing inspection of the algorithm.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    > That would be quite an extreme point of view. It would. And it would also require an extreme leap of logic to go from "companies developing car technology with direct effect on road safety should be as public as possible" to "do you want to expose where you drove your car"
    - verdverm 5y ago
      Maybe we could try applying the same logic to other companies and products. One example that would seem more important is Pfizer et al and the vaccine trial data, but more generally applications to the FDA
      - dmitriid 5y ago
        > would seem more important is Pfizer et al and the vaccine trial data Absolutely. Also the "we in EU have a secret deal with Pfizer to buy vaccines, this is not public info"
  - mekal 5y ago
    How do you arrive at that conclusion? That it implies all your "personal" driving info would be made public? Seems to me its more like car companies would not be able to "hide behind trade secrets to avoid scrutiny". Extreme silly example to make my point: DMV: "What does your car do to avoid running people over" Waymo: "Its a trade secret, sorry". * New law gets passed DMV: "Ok now tell us" Waymo: "Ok well...it honks the horn automatically and gives the person 5 seconds to get out the way. We believe that should be sufficient for the majority of cases and if you're too stupid to move, well...natural selection ftw." DMV: "..............really? that's crazy...it should really be more like...10 seconds."
    - hahaxdxd123 5y ago
      More like: DMV: "What does your car do to avoid running people over? This is a confidential process so that you can be as specific as possible in the name of public safety." Waymo: "[REDACTED]" Anonymous third party: FOIA request Waymo: "WTF?" DMV: "You can sue us to stop us from responding to this FOIA request. Please do." Waymo: "OK"
kahrl 5y ago
"Don't be evil."
- kiwijamo 5y ago
  That ship has long since sailed.
- lijogdfljk 5y ago
  Regardless of your opinions on the subject, they removed that ages ago iirc. It's irrelevant now.
  - kahrl 5y ago
    It's pretty relevant when there's an active lawsuit filed by disgruntled ex-employees in November 2021 relating to the motto: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21119310-google_complaint_filed https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21119310-google_comp... Don't understand why I'm getting downvoted. This is some pretty evil shit. Safety and secrecy don't mix.
    - tempnow987 5y ago
      The govt lying about be willing to keep this secret? Or google sharing trade secret info with the DMV and then having someone try to out it? I'm trying to track the "evil" here. The irony on HN is that virtually every OTHER self driving car mfg / provider is taking far FAR more risks than google if you follow the space.
abakker 5y ago
Why? Why keep it a secret? the part of me that likes meta gaming knows that when someone is trying to make a deception check, they have given you context enough to know they are lying...Its a bad look for a public company engaged in a high stakes deployment of new technology to want to HIDE THE RESULTS OF THE TEST.
- josefresco 5y ago
  They're worried about exposing "trade secrets".
  - rurp 5y ago
    They claim they're worried about trade secrets. It's just as likely there are some emberrasing details related to the crashes or elsewhere that Waymo is concerned will make them look bad. They are fighting to keep it secret, so by their choice all we can do is speculate. Companies stretching the definition of "trade secrets" to hide uncomfortable information is hardly unprecedented.
- ra7 5y ago
  It's not a secret to the DMV; they have the details. Waymo doesn't want a third party to know those details because they are apparently trade secrets.
babyshake 5y ago
It is easy to deceive with numbers. 100k miles per safety incident is not meaningful if you have mostly been driving around the same empty neighborhood streets at 2am. Safety and secrecy don't mix well.
_ea1k 5y ago
One of Waymo's trade secrets is their approach to routing. I can see why they wouldn't want to divulge details about how they handle specific decisions to take or avoid certain routes based upon their safety for the system. I still think they should be public, though.
verdverm 5y ago
> According to the lawsuit, the DMV contacted Waymo and invited the company to sue the agency. This is related to an unknown individual seeking the details of the permit application, not full censorship of what waymo does on the road or the accidents which do happen. Surprise surprise, the headline is meant to get you all worked up
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  I mean, you couldn't craft more perfect bait to get HN to start spouting unrelated opinions about Google.
  - hahaxdxd123 5y ago
    Always find it strange how much HN hates Google. It's not as society-rending as FB, not as monopolistic as Amazon, or opposed to open-source standards as Apple. Yet it's always the anti-Google threads that do well.
    - d4mi3n 5y ago
      I can't speak for others, but my personal distaste for Google (the company) is mainly around privacy issues. Other companies on this list have this issue as well (FB, Amazon), but Google is so dependent on advertising revenue that it's incentives trend towards privacy erosion.
      - froh 5y ago
        To my understanding Facebook purely exists off advertisements, there is no cloud, no Business Suite nothing. And Facebook, not Google, was the company used for political microtargetting. I trust google orders of magnitude more than Facebook. And for Amazon I simply stopped reading the "reviews".
        d4mi3n 5y ago
        We’re on the same page, though I’d argue Google holds a larger share and influence in the internet advertising industry, even if that’s not their only product. I frankly don’t trust FB, Google, or Amazon with my personal data. This becomes more frustrating when it’s difficult to avoid interacting with any of these companies given how widely used they are.
TheIronMark 5y ago
The fact that they want to keep it secret means we really, really need to know about it.
- NicoJuicy 5y ago
  No it doesn't. They want it secret for competitors, not for the governement.
ra7 5y ago
This Reddit thread has a good explanation: https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/sac1ti/waymo_suing_california_dmv_to_prevent_release_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/sac1ti/way... TLDR: DMV asked for proprietary details during permit process to which Waymo complied noting they were trade secret. A third party used California's FOIA to see Waymo's application in full, so the DMV asked Waymo to provide redacted copies. The third party has challenged redactions, so DMV told Waymo the only way to prevent them from releasing it is to sue to the agency.
mwattsun 5y ago
I saw robo-taxis tooling around Mountain View CA in 2019 so I interviewed at the company to get a safety driver job. I used to see them stopped waiting for a train to pass and became curious about how they worked. They were adding second safety drivers to keep the first safety drivers awake. They were also watching the safety drivers by remote video to make sure their eyes were on the road. I was told the Lidar doesn't work in rain or snow. I didn't get the job despite having a perfect driving record. I probably wouldn't have taken it anyway, because I got the impression they didn't want safety drivers asking too many questions or really giving much input. I was satisfied however because my question about depending on a autonomous system to stop properly for an oncoming train was answered - that's not something I would trust yet. I ended up getting a retirement job at Uber and Lyft which was much more interesting and fun.
- hardolaf 5y ago
  Yeah, the commercial ventures are all trying to do autonomous driving on a budget. The military systems work a whole lot better but that's because they pack way more sensors and way more compute power and can essentially power through issues like rain, snow, sandstorms, etc.
  - mwattsun 5y ago
    I didn't know this. Why the commercial cars are allowed in civilian traffic when they aren't the best systems? Is it too much to ask Waymo to have the latest and greatest when I put my kids in the robot car to take them to school? Because I learned as an Uber/Lyft driver that is something people do. I had to refuse it was against the rules to take unaccompanied minors.
    - ironman1478 5y ago
      The commercial systems are designed for the environments where they are supposed to work and no more. The parent said that the military vehicles can handle sand or snow. Neither of those are present in SF and the bay area in general. Waymo and the other companies are only going to deploy to climates that they have solved and in the background try to solve more operating environments.
duxup 5y ago
I'm open to the possibility that actual trade secrets were divulged when the DMV asked for further information from them and maybe the DMV should be able to review that info, but not divulge. Granted I'd also be happy to have a judge make the call.
tempnow987 5y ago
The reality is this is why you don't trust the govt. DMV asked for non-required proprietary info. Google said, sure, but emphasized this would include trade secret info. Govt agreed. Of course, somehow the fact that you can't trust what govt tells you is google's fault. Hey, how about just keeping things simple. This leads to that joke about the scariest things someone can here: "I'm the government and I'm here to help".
ironmagma 5y ago
The need for an oversight board for SDCs is long overdue. Looking for fellow technically minded people if anyone wants to start one together.
donohoe 5y ago
This link should get you around paywall (though I think you should consider subscribing if you read LAT with regularity): https://www.latimes.com./business/story/2022-01-28/waymo-robot-taxi-sues-state-secret-black-ice https://www.latimes.com./business/story/2022-01-28/waymo-rob...
- 14 5y ago
  For paywalls I have been loving 12ft.io you past the link and it does the rest. Most sites work with it.

102 points by georgecmu 5y ago

joenathanone 5y ago

These vehicles are driving on public roads, this information needs to be public.

onion2k 5y ago
The implication of your post is that you think it should be possible to find out everything that happens on public roads, included things like where you drove your car, what accidents you've had, and whether you've broken any traffic laws. That would be quite an extreme point of view. Roads are public in the sense that they're paid for by the public, and open to the public, but that surely shouldn't extend to the public being allowed to track everything that happens on them. There should be some limit on gathering information about public spaces.
- cscurmudgeon 5y ago
  The false equivalence is assuming algorithms are people and deserve privacy.
  - TrueDuality 5y ago
    That statement slaps of some existential philosophy that will probably need to be addressed at some point... For this context though I agree, we as a society should have the right to inspect any algorithm that makes safety or life altering decisions (looking at you "AI" judges) about your person or in public spaces you might reasonably occupy. I do think data used by an algorithm, or even potentially data that was used to train an algorithm should have a reasonable expectation of privacy. The trained weights do become part of the algorithm in my humble opinion, and that does potentially lead to leakage about the source data, but that doesn't justify not allowing inspection of the algorithm.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > That would be quite an extreme point of view. It would. And it would also require an extreme leap of logic to go from "companies developing car technology with direct effect on road safety should be as public as possible" to "do you want to expose where you drove your car"
  - verdverm 5y ago
    Maybe we could try applying the same logic to other companies and products. One example that would seem more important is Pfizer et al and the vaccine trial data, but more generally applications to the FDA
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      > would seem more important is Pfizer et al and the vaccine trial data Absolutely. Also the "we in EU have a secret deal with Pfizer to buy vaccines, this is not public info"
- mekal 5y ago
  How do you arrive at that conclusion? That it implies all your "personal" driving info would be made public? Seems to me its more like car companies would not be able to "hide behind trade secrets to avoid scrutiny". Extreme silly example to make my point: DMV: "What does your car do to avoid running people over" Waymo: "Its a trade secret, sorry". * New law gets passed DMV: "Ok now tell us" Waymo: "Ok well...it honks the horn automatically and gives the person 5 seconds to get out the way. We believe that should be sufficient for the majority of cases and if you're too stupid to move, well...natural selection ftw." DMV: "..............really? that's crazy...it should really be more like...10 seconds."
  - hahaxdxd123 5y ago
    More like: DMV: "What does your car do to avoid running people over? This is a confidential process so that you can be as specific as possible in the name of public safety." Waymo: "[REDACTED]" Anonymous third party: FOIA request Waymo: "WTF?" DMV: "You can sue us to stop us from responding to this FOIA request. Please do." Waymo: "OK"

kahrl 5y ago

"Don't be evil."

kiwijamo 5y ago
That ship has long since sailed.
lijogdfljk 5y ago
Regardless of your opinions on the subject, they removed that ages ago iirc. It's irrelevant now.
- kahrl 5y ago
  It's pretty relevant when there's an active lawsuit filed by disgruntled ex-employees in November 2021 relating to the motto: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21119310-google_complaint_filed https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21119310-google_comp... Don't understand why I'm getting downvoted. This is some pretty evil shit. Safety and secrecy don't mix.
  - tempnow987 5y ago
    The govt lying about be willing to keep this secret? Or google sharing trade secret info with the DMV and then having someone try to out it? I'm trying to track the "evil" here. The irony on HN is that virtually every OTHER self driving car mfg / provider is taking far FAR more risks than google if you follow the space.

abakker 5y ago

Why? Why keep it a secret? the part of me that likes meta gaming knows that when someone is trying to make a deception check, they have given you context enough to know they are lying...Its a bad look for a public company engaged in a high stakes deployment of new technology to want to HIDE THE RESULTS OF THE TEST.

josefresco 5y ago
They're worried about exposing "trade secrets".
- rurp 5y ago
  They claim they're worried about trade secrets. It's just as likely there are some emberrasing details related to the crashes or elsewhere that Waymo is concerned will make them look bad. They are fighting to keep it secret, so by their choice all we can do is speculate. Companies stretching the definition of "trade secrets" to hide uncomfortable information is hardly unprecedented.
ra7 5y ago
It's not a secret to the DMV; they have the details. Waymo doesn't want a third party to know those details because they are apparently trade secrets.

babyshake 5y ago

It is easy to deceive with numbers. 100k miles per safety incident is not meaningful if you have mostly been driving around the same empty neighborhood streets at 2am. Safety and secrecy don't mix well.

_ea1k 5y ago

One of Waymo's trade secrets is their approach to routing. I can see why they wouldn't want to divulge details about how they handle specific decisions to take or avoid certain routes based upon their safety for the system. I still think they should be public, though.

verdverm 5y ago

> According to the lawsuit, the DMV contacted Waymo and invited the company to sue the agency. This is related to an unknown individual seeking the details of the permit application, not full censorship of what waymo does on the road or the accidents which do happen. Surprise surprise, the headline is meant to get you all worked up

bpodgursky 5y ago
I mean, you couldn't craft more perfect bait to get HN to start spouting unrelated opinions about Google.
- hahaxdxd123 5y ago
  Always find it strange how much HN hates Google. It's not as society-rending as FB, not as monopolistic as Amazon, or opposed to open-source standards as Apple. Yet it's always the anti-Google threads that do well.
  - d4mi3n 5y ago
    I can't speak for others, but my personal distaste for Google (the company) is mainly around privacy issues. Other companies on this list have this issue as well (FB, Amazon), but Google is so dependent on advertising revenue that it's incentives trend towards privacy erosion.
    - froh 5y ago
      To my understanding Facebook purely exists off advertisements, there is no cloud, no Business Suite nothing. And Facebook, not Google, was the company used for political microtargetting. I trust google orders of magnitude more than Facebook. And for Amazon I simply stopped reading the "reviews".
      - d4mi3n 5y ago
        We’re on the same page, though I’d argue Google holds a larger share and influence in the internet advertising industry, even if that’s not their only product. I frankly don’t trust FB, Google, or Amazon with my personal data. This becomes more frustrating when it’s difficult to avoid interacting with any of these companies given how widely used they are.

TheIronMark 5y ago

The fact that they want to keep it secret means we really, really need to know about it.

NicoJuicy 5y ago
No it doesn't. They want it secret for competitors, not for the governement.

ra7 5y ago

This Reddit thread has a good explanation: https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/sac1ti/waymo_suing_california_dmv_to_prevent_release_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/sac1ti/way... TLDR: DMV asked for proprietary details during permit process to which Waymo complied noting they were trade secret. A third party used California's FOIA to see Waymo's application in full, so the DMV asked Waymo to provide redacted copies. The third party has challenged redactions, so DMV told Waymo the only way to prevent them from releasing it is to sue to the agency.

mwattsun 5y ago

I saw robo-taxis tooling around Mountain View CA in 2019 so I interviewed at the company to get a safety driver job. I used to see them stopped waiting for a train to pass and became curious about how they worked. They were adding second safety drivers to keep the first safety drivers awake. They were also watching the safety drivers by remote video to make sure their eyes were on the road. I was told the Lidar doesn't work in rain or snow. I didn't get the job despite having a perfect driving record. I probably wouldn't have taken it anyway, because I got the impression they didn't want safety drivers asking too many questions or really giving much input. I was satisfied however because my question about depending on a autonomous system to stop properly for an oncoming train was answered - that's not something I would trust yet. I ended up getting a retirement job at Uber and Lyft which was much more interesting and fun.

hardolaf 5y ago
Yeah, the commercial ventures are all trying to do autonomous driving on a budget. The military systems work a whole lot better but that's because they pack way more sensors and way more compute power and can essentially power through issues like rain, snow, sandstorms, etc.
- mwattsun 5y ago
  I didn't know this. Why the commercial cars are allowed in civilian traffic when they aren't the best systems? Is it too much to ask Waymo to have the latest and greatest when I put my kids in the robot car to take them to school? Because I learned as an Uber/Lyft driver that is something people do. I had to refuse it was against the rules to take unaccompanied minors.
  - ironman1478 5y ago
    The commercial systems are designed for the environments where they are supposed to work and no more. The parent said that the military vehicles can handle sand or snow. Neither of those are present in SF and the bay area in general. Waymo and the other companies are only going to deploy to climates that they have solved and in the background try to solve more operating environments.

duxup 5y ago

I'm open to the possibility that actual trade secrets were divulged when the DMV asked for further information from them and maybe the DMV should be able to review that info, but not divulge. Granted I'd also be happy to have a judge make the call.

tempnow987 5y ago

The reality is this is why you don't trust the govt. DMV asked for non-required proprietary info. Google said, sure, but emphasized this would include trade secret info. Govt agreed. Of course, somehow the fact that you can't trust what govt tells you is google's fault. Hey, how about just keeping things simple. This leads to that joke about the scariest things someone can here: "I'm the government and I'm here to help".

ironmagma 5y ago

The need for an oversight board for SDCs is long overdue. Looking for fellow technically minded people if anyone wants to start one together.

donohoe 5y ago

This link should get you around paywall (though I think you should consider subscribing if you read LAT with regularity): https://www.latimes.com./business/story/2022-01-28/waymo-robot-taxi-sues-state-secret-black-ice https://www.latimes.com./business/story/2022-01-28/waymo-rob...

14 5y ago
For paywalls I have been loving 12ft.io you past the link and it does the rest. Most sites work with it.