5 ms·

It's the question of whether these teams are composed of people who can pass a driving test in Waymo's areas of operation. I would be doubtful that they aren't

It's the question of whether these teams are composed of people who can pass a driving test in Waymo's areas of operation. I would be doubtful that they aren't but there appears to be no way for external verification of any kind.

jeffbee 8mo ago
The remote operators are not called upon to answer matters of law.
- Retric 8mo ago
  Moving a car on public streets is a matter of law even if the car is interpreting moderately high level directions like make a U turn here. Especially as the car is already having issues when they takeover.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
  - verdverm 8mo ago
    They aren't moving the car, they are answering customer calls and clicking waypoints on a map to unstuck the car when it phones home "I'm confused" It's click bait for people's priors
    - catmanjan 8mo ago
      If someone from the Phillipines clicks waypoints for a drone in Ukraine, is it a warcrime?
    - circuit10 8mo ago
      I would assume that unsticking it requires forcing it to do maneuvers that it would otherwise refuse to do (or it would just unstick itself), so you'd need some knowledge of laws to do that
    - Retric 8mo ago
      Those waypoints have legal implications. It’s often illegal to make a U-Turn to avoid a police checkpoint for example. There’s no way someone can unstick a confused car without being able to make legally relevant choices.
      - dekhn 8mo ago
        In California (and I think most places) it's not illegal to make a (legal) U-turn to avoid a police checkpoint or otherwise avoid a checkpoint.
        Retric 8mo ago
        Waymo is operating in many locations outside of California such as Florida and Texas, and it intends to expand to many more states.
        dekhn 8mo ago
        It is also legal to u-turn before a police checkpoint in Florida and Texas. In fact I think it's true to say that you can do this in any state.
        Retric 8mo ago
        If you see a checkpoint at sufficient distance to make a legal u turn before interacting with the police yes. If a police officer is pointing at your car because they are going to search you no.
        dekhn 8mo ago
        So? You made a series of factually incorrect statements which I have debunked based on trivially determined facts.
        Retric 8mo ago
        So I realized you misunderstood what I said. For example, I said they operate in Texas as you called out California as your example. Texas doesn’t allow sobriety checkpoints but it’s an entirely new states worth of legal issues here.
- turtlesdown11 8mo ago
  > answer matters of law well yes, answering matters of law is the exclusive jurisdiction of judges
dekhn 8mo ago
The scope of their actions does not require them to have passed a driver's test.
- blibble 8mo ago
  so they can't induce movement of the vehicle, at all, ever? that's probably fine then but if they can at all: they need a driving license it is not unreasonable for a state to want to control who is allowed to move around 1.5 tonnes of metal in a public environment
  - offnominal 8mo ago
    This is analogous to a situation where a passenger in a vehicle, for example, asks the driver to pull over or to drive to a given spot. I believe the passenger does not need to have a driving license to perform this task.
  - dekhn 8mo ago
    I have no specific knowledge of the law or the tech requirements here, but I don't think that the state of CA makes Google get CA driving licenses for its phillipines service employees.
    - atq2119 8mo ago
      There may be an is/ought confusion in your exchange. It is probably true that California has no such law today. It's also true that regulation always takes a while to catch up to technological advances, and so there is a useful, separate conversation to be had about whether California (and anywhere else) ought to have such a law.
      - dekhn 8mo ago
        To be clear, California's legislators are paying close attention to Waymo, both because it's being deployed in their major cities, and because Alphabet is a California company. Depending on which legislator you listen to, Waymo is either the devil that is constantly running people and cats down everywhere, or savior that will rapidly replace all human drivers because it's safer. At least for now, they are keeping a fairly light touch on the legislation for self-driving cars, both because they want to see the technology expand without unnecessary regulation, and because they want to know what the baseline fatality rate is compared to humans. Likely when the image is clearer (personally I expect that self-driving will expand to all major US cities, and also demonstrate that it is safer than humans) they will find some regulation around remote operator qualifications.

jeffbee 8mo ago

The remote operators are not called upon to answer matters of law.

Retric 8mo ago
Moving a car on public streets is a matter of law even if the car is interpreting moderately high level directions like make a U turn here. Especially as the car is already having issues when they takeover.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- verdverm 8mo ago
  They aren't moving the car, they are answering customer calls and clicking waypoints on a map to unstuck the car when it phones home "I'm confused" It's click bait for people's priors
  - catmanjan 8mo ago
    If someone from the Phillipines clicks waypoints for a drone in Ukraine, is it a warcrime?
  - circuit10 8mo ago
    I would assume that unsticking it requires forcing it to do maneuvers that it would otherwise refuse to do (or it would just unstick itself), so you'd need some knowledge of laws to do that
  - Retric 8mo ago
    Those waypoints have legal implications. It’s often illegal to make a U-Turn to avoid a police checkpoint for example. There’s no way someone can unstick a confused car without being able to make legally relevant choices.
    - dekhn 8mo ago
      In California (and I think most places) it's not illegal to make a (legal) U-turn to avoid a police checkpoint or otherwise avoid a checkpoint.
      - Retric 8mo ago
        Waymo is operating in many locations outside of California such as Florida and Texas, and it intends to expand to many more states.
        dekhn 8mo ago
        It is also legal to u-turn before a police checkpoint in Florida and Texas. In fact I think it's true to say that you can do this in any state.
        Retric 8mo ago
        If you see a checkpoint at sufficient distance to make a legal u turn before interacting with the police yes. If a police officer is pointing at your car because they are going to search you no.
        dekhn 8mo ago
        So? You made a series of factually incorrect statements which I have debunked based on trivially determined facts.
        Retric 8mo ago
        So I realized you misunderstood what I said. For example, I said they operate in Texas as you called out California as your example. Texas doesn’t allow sobriety checkpoints but it’s an entirely new states worth of legal issues here.
turtlesdown11 8mo ago
> answer matters of law well yes, answering matters of law is the exclusive jurisdiction of judges

dekhn 8mo ago

The scope of their actions does not require them to have passed a driver's test.

blibble 8mo ago
so they can't induce movement of the vehicle, at all, ever? that's probably fine then but if they can at all: they need a driving license it is not unreasonable for a state to want to control who is allowed to move around 1.5 tonnes of metal in a public environment
- offnominal 8mo ago
  This is analogous to a situation where a passenger in a vehicle, for example, asks the driver to pull over or to drive to a given spot. I believe the passenger does not need to have a driving license to perform this task.
- dekhn 8mo ago
  I have no specific knowledge of the law or the tech requirements here, but I don't think that the state of CA makes Google get CA driving licenses for its phillipines service employees.
  - atq2119 8mo ago
    There may be an is/ought confusion in your exchange. It is probably true that California has no such law today. It's also true that regulation always takes a while to catch up to technological advances, and so there is a useful, separate conversation to be had about whether California (and anywhere else) ought to have such a law.
    - dekhn 8mo ago
      To be clear, California's legislators are paying close attention to Waymo, both because it's being deployed in their major cities, and because Alphabet is a California company. Depending on which legislator you listen to, Waymo is either the devil that is constantly running people and cats down everywhere, or savior that will rapidly replace all human drivers because it's safer. At least for now, they are keeping a fairly light touch on the legislation for self-driving cars, both because they want to see the technology expand without unnecessary regulation, and because they want to know what the baseline fatality rate is compared to humans. Likely when the image is clearer (personally I expect that self-driving will expand to all major US cities, and also demonstrate that it is safer than humans) they will find some regulation around remote operator qualifications.