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The submitted article is about safety of the Waymo cars. The article you're linking to is about non-safety [0] remote assistance of a non-Waymo remote taxi comp

by jsnell 2y ago

The submitted article is about safety of the Waymo cars. The article you're linking to is about non-safety [0] remote assistance of a non-Waymo remote taxi company. I'm quite baffled why you think there's any connection here. [0] Remote operators don't control the car in real time, so they certainly would not have any kind of impact on the safety record either way.

tivert 2y ago
> The submitted article is about safety of the Waymo cars. The article you're linking to is about non-safety [0] remote assistance of a non-Waymo remote taxi company. I'm quite baffled why you think there's any connection here. The article I linked is about Waymo cars too: > As companies like Waymo, owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet...have begun to remove drivers from their cars, scrutiny of their operations has increased. After a series of high-profile accidents, they have started to acknowledge that the cars require human assistance. Zoox let the NYT peek to see the man behind the curtain. That "Waymo and Cruise declined to comment for this story" doesn't mean there's no man behind their curtain, and probably just means they're still following the playbook of exaggerating the technology to drive interest in it.
- jsnell 2y ago
  I disagree, the article is not about Waymo cars. 99% of the article is about some Amazon-owned robotaxi company. Waymo is mentioned in two sentences. One saying they didn't comment on the story, and the other the one you quoted. Waymo has used this kind of limited remote operation for years and talked about it publicly [0]. The article provides literally no evidence for its assertion that something changed (let alone making a falsifiable claim about what changed). So it's pretty clear that this paragraph claiming that something changed isn't actually about Waymo either. It's pretty sad that the journalist feels the need to just blatantly lie like that, but I guess it made the article look a little bit more relevant. I can't help notice that you didn't explain why you think this is in any way related to the crash data from the submitted article. The remote operation is not used in realtime, and would neither help avoid crashes nor cause them. I guess it's my fault for phrasing that as a statement rather than a question. Any chance you could answer that? [0] Random example from a few years back, found with 5 seconds of searching, just to show that this isn't new: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/secret-weapon-self-driving-car-startups-humans-2021-08-23/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/secret...
  - tivert 2y ago
    > I disagree, the article is not about Waymo cars. 99% of the article is about some Amazon-owned robotaxi company. I disagree. The article is about how robot taxis in general aren't as robotic as they seem, which includes Waymo. It focused on that Amazon-owned robotaxi company as an example, because they allowed the NYT to peek behind the scenes, which greatly helps in explaining what's going on. > Waymo has used this kind of limited remote operation for years and talked about it publicly [0]. I don't get your objection that the NYT article applies to Waymo, since you acknowledge Waymo has similar human operators behind the scenes doing similar things.
    - jsnell 2y ago
      Your initial claim was that the submitted article was "propaganda" in reaction to the NYT article. I think that claim doesn't make any sense for a number of reasons: a) The article wasn't about Waymo, and they would not have seen any need to respond to it. b) You're implying that this article is somehow scandalous, and that something new is being revealed, and that's why they're doing this "propaganda". That's not the case. This is not new. Waymo has described their remote operator setup for years, and nothing new is being being revealed here about how the companies operate in general, and about Waymo in specific (see point a; the article has no information about Waymo except an unsourced lie and a "no comment statement"). c) The article has nothing to do with the submitted post. For this "propaganda" to be effective at refuting the article, the two would need to be in some way about the same thing. The submission is about accidents, in particular accidents leading to injuries. Remote operators have nothing to do with such accidents. Your NYT article does not suggest any such mechanism. You have not suggested any mechanism by which that happens. You have not even said what you think the problem is. Do you think the remote operators are covering up for accidents? Causing accidents? Avoiding accidents? As far as I can tell the article is a total nothingburger, and your pushing of it in this context is just a non sequitur. Again: Why do you think your NYT article has anything to do with the subject of this blog post? What's the part you think is scandalous and demands a response?

by jsnell 2y ago

tivert 2y ago

> The submitted article is about safety of the Waymo cars. The article you're linking to is about non-safety [0] remote assistance of a non-Waymo remote taxi company. I'm quite baffled why you think there's any connection here. The article I linked is about Waymo cars too: > As companies like Waymo, owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet...have begun to remove drivers from their cars, scrutiny of their operations has increased. After a series of high-profile accidents, they have started to acknowledge that the cars require human assistance. Zoox let the NYT peek to see the man behind the curtain. That "Waymo and Cruise declined to comment for this story" doesn't mean there's no man behind their curtain, and probably just means they're still following the playbook of exaggerating the technology to drive interest in it.

jsnell 2y ago
I disagree, the article is not about Waymo cars. 99% of the article is about some Amazon-owned robotaxi company. Waymo is mentioned in two sentences. One saying they didn't comment on the story, and the other the one you quoted. Waymo has used this kind of limited remote operation for years and talked about it publicly [0]. The article provides literally no evidence for its assertion that something changed (let alone making a falsifiable claim about what changed). So it's pretty clear that this paragraph claiming that something changed isn't actually about Waymo either. It's pretty sad that the journalist feels the need to just blatantly lie like that, but I guess it made the article look a little bit more relevant. I can't help notice that you didn't explain why you think this is in any way related to the crash data from the submitted article. The remote operation is not used in realtime, and would neither help avoid crashes nor cause them. I guess it's my fault for phrasing that as a statement rather than a question. Any chance you could answer that? [0] Random example from a few years back, found with 5 seconds of searching, just to show that this isn't new: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/secret-weapon-self-driving-car-startups-humans-2021-08-23/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/secret...
- tivert 2y ago
  > I disagree, the article is not about Waymo cars. 99% of the article is about some Amazon-owned robotaxi company. I disagree. The article is about how robot taxis in general aren't as robotic as they seem, which includes Waymo. It focused on that Amazon-owned robotaxi company as an example, because they allowed the NYT to peek behind the scenes, which greatly helps in explaining what's going on. > Waymo has used this kind of limited remote operation for years and talked about it publicly [0]. I don't get your objection that the NYT article applies to Waymo, since you acknowledge Waymo has similar human operators behind the scenes doing similar things.
  - jsnell 2y ago
    Your initial claim was that the submitted article was "propaganda" in reaction to the NYT article. I think that claim doesn't make any sense for a number of reasons: a) The article wasn't about Waymo, and they would not have seen any need to respond to it. b) You're implying that this article is somehow scandalous, and that something new is being revealed, and that's why they're doing this "propaganda". That's not the case. This is not new. Waymo has described their remote operator setup for years, and nothing new is being being revealed here about how the companies operate in general, and about Waymo in specific (see point a; the article has no information about Waymo except an unsourced lie and a "no comment statement"). c) The article has nothing to do with the submitted post. For this "propaganda" to be effective at refuting the article, the two would need to be in some way about the same thing. The submission is about accidents, in particular accidents leading to injuries. Remote operators have nothing to do with such accidents. Your NYT article does not suggest any such mechanism. You have not suggested any mechanism by which that happens. You have not even said what you think the problem is. Do you think the remote operators are covering up for accidents? Causing accidents? Avoiding accidents? As far as I can tell the article is a total nothingburger, and your pushing of it in this context is just a non sequitur. Again: Why do you think your NYT article has anything to do with the subject of this blog post? What's the part you think is scandalous and demands a response?