3 ms·
If you watch the video, the cat is unfortunate, but not particularly concerning. It was night time, and the cat ran underneath the car from the sidewalk. It's v
by scarmig 10mo ago
If you watch the video, the cat is unfortunate, but not particularly concerning. It was night time, and the cat ran underneath the car from the sidewalk. It's very unlikely that a human would do any better (though, I'd welcome Waymo adding more sensors to the undercarriage to prevent this in the future).
What is concerning is that a woman went up to the Waymo to try to get the cat, backed away a foot or two, and then the Waymo drove off. That seems dangerous, both for the fact that the woman was so close and also because her crouching down in front of the Waymo indicates that there's something exceptional about the environment so the Waymo should proceed with more caution.
- rl3 10mo ago>If you watch the video, the cat is unfortunate, but not particularly concerning. I suspect you'd feel different if it was your cat. >It's very unlikely that a human would do any better (though, I'd welcome Waymo adding more sensors to the undercarriage to prevent this in the future). Except the human driver would've almost certainly communicated with the woman trying to collect the cat. I'm surprised they don't have a robust undercarriage array given the hypothetical risk to children, even adults.
- anon7000 10mo agoIt’s still a red herring. I lived in the country and had many “pets” (well… stray cats) get killed by cars growing up. Humans kill soooo many pets with cars every year. The only question is whether Waymo is less dangerous than humans on average, not whether Waymo can achieve a flawless track record. It’ll be great if Waymo models can learn from this and become even safer. Human drivers absolutely don’t do that.
- rl3 10mo ago>It’s still a red herring. I don't think so. Not if it's easily within their engineering capabilities to make scenarios like this much safer or even completely safe. Historically there's always been frequent accidents involving low speed fatalities of pets and children in similar fashion to this that tend to happen in driveways, so the fact the scenario hasn't been accounted for adequately is a little shocking. >The only question is whether Waymo is less dangerous than humans on average, not whether Waymo can achieve a flawless track record. Even if it's vastly safer than humans on average already, if this particular area is less safe than humans, then that warrants attention.