3 ms·

It’s not necessarily harmless. If that traffic jam blocks an emergency vehicle, people can die.

danielheath 3y ago
There’s been many cases of autonomous cars interfering in active firefighting (rolling slowly between equipment, stopping on hoses, etc).
- nomel 3y ago
  Let’s get that taken care of, and not intentionally make things worse.
  - danielheath 3y ago
    Some would view disabling the cars which are interfering with emergency services as “get that taken care of”, and attempts to roll out additional cars without fixing the bug as “intentionally make things worse”.
    - nomel 3y ago
      That’s completely fair. Let’s work on that, with the required many times increase in efficiency for public transportation to work in cities made for cars, instead of blocking traffic. One approach for the increase in efficiency is automation. I would like to know what their approach is. As this, and interviews have shown, they have no approach or real goal.
      - saulpw 3y ago
        Protest is a political tool. If blocking traffic raises awareness (as it has done here) then I think that counts as working on it. We're not going to get cars off the road by writing letters to our senator or donating a few hundred dollars to a political campaign (we've been trying for decades). Maybe aggravating the general public into realizing the fragility and selfishness of the tech industry's "solution" will get people to reevaluate funding for public transportation. I doubt it, because I've become deeply cynical about human nature, but I also see that the roots of progress often comes from surprising places. Like refusing to ride at the back of the bus. Or dumping tea into a harbor. Or putting a traffic cone on a robot. Keep it simple, don't hurt anyone, make your point. We can argue about the efficacy of their tactics but at the end of the day they're trying something.
        nomel 3y ago
        > If blocking traffic raises awareness From the article, > protest against the city being used as a testing ground for this emerging technology. What awareness are they raising, exactly? Are you/they suggesting that people in the Bay Area don't know that these driverless cars exist? Or is it that they're fragile/not complete yet? This is a genuine question, because I, obviously, don't understand. I see this similar to someone laying in the road, blocking human drivers, and saying they're raising awareness of the fact that drivers can be blocking if someone put effort into blocking them. I don't get it. Help me.
        saulpw 3y ago
        From where I sit, there's a general perception that driverless cars ("tech") will reduce traffic accidents and fatalities and be an overall significant positive improvement in transportation (source: partner is lifer at city DOT and is pro-driverless cars). There's a corresponding trust that companies/process/regulations wouldn't allow the deployment of driverless vehicles unless they're a safe and mature technology. And a similar lack of understanding of how mature the technology actually is (given mainstream hype from Musk etc). So a demonstration that extreme anti-social behavior will currently result, not from edge-case conditions that would be dangerous even for a human to be driving in, but from a simple hack that literally any miscreant could pull off in seconds and successfully run away from without any risk to themselves, might be sufficient to raise awareness that we can't trust creators of these vehicles or the larger system to do adequate testing before deployment, and that in fact the vehicles are already deployed widely enough to inflict transportation blockages with a minimum of miscreants and effort by same.
        nomel 3y ago
        > but from a simple hack that literally any miscreant could pull off in seconds and successfully run away from without any risk to themselves Without any risk to themselves, or anyone else. I don't think anyone will see this point of "not enough testing", when a car should not continue with a stop sign, road cone, or human on the hood, under any condition. I think most everyone will see this as expected and desired behavior, with a clear demonstration of safe handling of a dumb situation caused by some angry idiots. Here's a question for anyone with this perspective: What should a fully tested, fully qualified, car do in this situation? I see the "correct" answer as: immediately disable automation, and prompt a human for remote control. What's your "correct" answer? This is all opinion that could only be settled be a poll of those who became aware of this situation. I'm having trouble finding any, but this one from NY [1]. [1] https://observer.com/2014/12/majority-of-new-yorkers-want-protesters-to-stop-blocking-traffic-poll/ https://observer.com/2014/12/majority-of-new-yorkers-want-pr...

There’s been many cases of autonomous cars interfering in active firefighting (rolling slowly between equipment, stopping on hoses, etc).

nomel 3y ago
Let’s get that taken care of, and not intentionally make things worse.
- danielheath 3y ago
  Some would view disabling the cars which are interfering with emergency services as “get that taken care of”, and attempts to roll out additional cars without fixing the bug as “intentionally make things worse”.
  - nomel 3y ago
    That’s completely fair. Let’s work on that, with the required many times increase in efficiency for public transportation to work in cities made for cars, instead of blocking traffic. One approach for the increase in efficiency is automation. I would like to know what their approach is. As this, and interviews have shown, they have no approach or real goal.
    - saulpw 3y ago
      Protest is a political tool. If blocking traffic raises awareness (as it has done here) then I think that counts as working on it. We're not going to get cars off the road by writing letters to our senator or donating a few hundred dollars to a political campaign (we've been trying for decades). Maybe aggravating the general public into realizing the fragility and selfishness of the tech industry's "solution" will get people to reevaluate funding for public transportation. I doubt it, because I've become deeply cynical about human nature, but I also see that the roots of progress often comes from surprising places. Like refusing to ride at the back of the bus. Or dumping tea into a harbor. Or putting a traffic cone on a robot. Keep it simple, don't hurt anyone, make your point. We can argue about the efficacy of their tactics but at the end of the day they're trying something.
      - nomel 3y ago
        > If blocking traffic raises awareness From the article, > protest against the city being used as a testing ground for this emerging technology. What awareness are they raising, exactly? Are you/they suggesting that people in the Bay Area don't know that these driverless cars exist? Or is it that they're fragile/not complete yet? This is a genuine question, because I, obviously, don't understand. I see this similar to someone laying in the road, blocking human drivers, and saying they're raising awareness of the fact that drivers can be blocking if someone put effort into blocking them. I don't get it. Help me.
        saulpw 3y ago
        From where I sit, there's a general perception that driverless cars ("tech") will reduce traffic accidents and fatalities and be an overall significant positive improvement in transportation (source: partner is lifer at city DOT and is pro-driverless cars). There's a corresponding trust that companies/process/regulations wouldn't allow the deployment of driverless vehicles unless they're a safe and mature technology. And a similar lack of understanding of how mature the technology actually is (given mainstream hype from Musk etc). So a demonstration that extreme anti-social behavior will currently result, not from edge-case conditions that would be dangerous even for a human to be driving in, but from a simple hack that literally any miscreant could pull off in seconds and successfully run away from without any risk to themselves, might be sufficient to raise awareness that we can't trust creators of these vehicles or the larger system to do adequate testing before deployment, and that in fact the vehicles are already deployed widely enough to inflict transportation blockages with a minimum of miscreants and effort by same.
        nomel 3y ago
        > but from a simple hack that literally any miscreant could pull off in seconds and successfully run away from without any risk to themselves Without any risk to themselves, or anyone else. I don't think anyone will see this point of "not enough testing", when a car should not continue with a stop sign, road cone, or human on the hood, under any condition. I think most everyone will see this as expected and desired behavior, with a clear demonstration of safe handling of a dumb situation caused by some angry idiots. Here's a question for anyone with this perspective: What should a fully tested, fully qualified, car do in this situation? I see the "correct" answer as: immediately disable automation, and prompt a human for remote control. What's your "correct" answer? This is all opinion that could only be settled be a poll of those who became aware of this situation. I'm having trouble finding any, but this one from NY [1]. [1] https://observer.com/2014/12/majority-of-new-yorkers-want-protesters-to-stop-blocking-traffic-poll/ https://observer.com/2014/12/majority-of-new-yorkers-want-pr...