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If that person had been a roboticist, they would have known what to do: stand in front of the car. It would have saved the cat's life. And most non-roboticists
by chfritz 10mo ago
If that person had been a roboticist, they would have known what to do: stand in front of the car. It would have saved the cat's life. And most non-roboticists will immediately recognize this as a solution, too: these cars obviously detect humans right in front of them very well and will not move in that case. By the way, the same would have worked better for most human drivers as well. Even if you yelled at a human driver that there was a cat under the car, it would not be a reliable solution because they may not hear or understand you. But they, too, would almost certainly not run you over if you stood in front of the car.
To be clear, I don't blame the witness for not doing this in the moment. And she probably has figured this out by now, too. I'm mostly pointing out that, as more and more people learn about robot taxis, more people will known how to help in such a situation, which is clearly what she wanted to do.
- astrange 10mo agoWaymos are capable of seeing cats - I was in one looking at the route view the other day, and it highlighted a cat that was a decent distance away sitting in a front yard as it passed it. Then it went through a roundabout seemingly just to show it could do it. (It then proceeded to drop me off in a weird back corner spot in Santana Row by a loading dock. Can't have everything.) I assume once you're close enough or actually under it there's a blind spot. It doesn't seem very good at evading potholes either.
- l-albertovich 10mo agoSomething I hadn't thought about is, could it be that electric cars are not perceived as a threat due to the lack / different of noise, vibration and heat when compared to a combustion car? I know animals nap under cars all the time but at least with "regular" cars they seemed to be more aware of the danger. I'm not talking about waymo, self driving, human in the loop or any of that here, I'm just curious because I wonder if the same thing would've happened with a combustion engine and if there are any "easy wins" in terms of deterrence.
- astrange 10mo agoDoesn't the heat make cars more attractive? I know squirrels like living in engines and sometimes eating the cables.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- lelanthran 10mo ago> Even if you yelled at a human driver that there was a cat under the car, it would not be a reliable solution because they may not hear or understand you. Doesn't matter if shouting at the driver only works some of the time, that's still an infinite improvement over working 0% of the time when there's no driver. The difference between actual zero and close-to-zero is infinity.
- gus_massa 10mo ago> If that person had been a roboticist, they would have known what to do: stand in front of the car. How good is the detection of humans? 99%? 99.99%? 99.9999%? My recommendation is to stay away from the path of any car when possible.