Man Trapped in Circling Waymo on Way to Airport (cbsnews.com)
- Reference: 0175835431
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/06/0148208/man-trapped-in-circling-waymo-on-way-to-airport
- Source link: https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/la-man-nearly-misses-flight-as-self-driving-waymo-taxi-drives-around-parking-lot-in-circles/
Still stuck in the car, Michael Johns — a tech-industry worker — then phoned Waymo for help. ("Has this been hacked? What's going on? I feel like I'm in the movies. Is somebody playing a joke on me?") But he also filmed the incident...
> "Why is this thing going in a circle? I'm getting dizzy," Johns said in a video [2]posted on social media that has since gone viral, garnering more than two million views and interactions....
>
> The Waymo representative was finally able to get the car under control after a few minutes, allowing him to get to the airport just in time to catch his flight back to LA. He says that the lack of empathy from the representative who attempted to help him, on top of the point that he's unsure if he was talking to a human or AI, are major concerns. "Where's the empathy? Where's the human connection to this?" Johns said while speaking with CBS News Los Angeles. "It's just, again, a case of today's digital world. A half-baked product and nobody meeting the customer, the consumers, in the middle."
>
> Johns, who ironically works in the tech industry himself, says he would love to see services like Waymo succeed, but he has no plans to hop in for a ride until he's sure that the kinks have been fixed. In the meantime, he's still waiting for someone from Waymo to contact him in regards to his concerns, which hasn't yet happened despite how much attention his video has attracted since last week.
"My Monday was fine till i got into one of Waymo 's 'humanless' cars," he [3]posted on LinkedIn . "I get in, buckle up ( safety first) and the saga begins.... [T]he car just went around in circles, eight circles at that..."
A Waymo spokesperson admitted they'd added about five minutes to his travel time, but then "said the software glitch had since been resolved," [4]reports the Los Angeles Times , "and that Johns was not charged for the ride."
One final irony? According to his LinkedIn profile, Johns is a CES Innovations Awards judge.
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/la-man-nearly-misses-flight-as-self-driving-waymo-taxi-drives-around-parking-lot-in-circles/
[2] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mikejohns_lyft-uber-omg-activity-7271962168286191617-E7j4/
[3] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mikejohns_lyft-uber-omg-activity-7271962168286191617-E7j4/
[4] https://www.yahoo.com/tech/los-angeles-man-trapped-circling-174520267.html
Why couldn't he get out? (Score:3)
Do these cars lock the passengers in? If there was a human behind the wheel, this would be considered a hostage situation.
open the door at 45MPH or higher? (Score:4, Funny)
open the door at 45MPH or higher?
Re: (Score:2)
Why was the vehicle going 45MPH in a parking lot? That sounds like yet another crime this Google vehicle has committed.
Re: (Score:2)
Pop quiz, hotshot...
Re: (Score:3)
if you do not tip then I keep the car over 50
Re: (Score:2)
Why open the door at speed when a passenger can simply hit the kill switch and stop the vehicle before exiting. They have fully-functional E-Stops, right?! Safety 101.
Re: (Score:1)
So you would think if the car detected and open door it would slow to a stop immediately. You'd also expect there to be a panic button.
Open the door? (Score:2)
Can you open the door? I bet the car goes into an emergency stop if the doors are opened.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
doors auto lock while the car is in motion.
Re: Open the door? (Score:2)
Well, my doors lock when the car is in motion, too, but the lock doesn't stop me from opening the door from the inside.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm guessing the locked doors also don't stop the occupants from turning the car engine off.
having an e-stop button = in control and that = DU (Score:2)
having an e-stop button = in control and that can = DUI in some states.
Put of the plan for self driving cars is help cut down DUI's by driving drunk people.
Re: (Score:3)
Do you have any actual precedent or explicit regulatory text to support your theory, or did you just pull it out of your ass because you don't understand how courts actually apply law?
Re: (Score:2)
people have gotten an DUI for just sleeping in the car with keys in there pocket.
also for now they still have devices that look they can take Actual Physical Control of an car.
[1]https://romanolawpc.com/dui-se... [romanolawpc.com]
What is Actual Physical Control is an state by state thing
[1] https://romanolawpc.com/dui-self-driving-driverless-car/
Just the beginning (Score:3)
The more ubiquitous these get the more of these issues will start occuring and the less companies like Google will care. Right now every small issue gets blown up in the media. But pretty soon these cars will be running over people, people will be robbed, and more traffic accidents will occur and we will never heard about.
Re: (Score:2)
just wait for the self driving track to wipe out an school bus full of kids.
Not the first time this happened (Score:4, Interesting)
Back in December a Waymo was recorded repeatedly [1]looping around a roundabout [reddit.com]. Supposedly the company issued a software fix for this glitch.
Apparently not.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/1hc0kit/waymo_gets_stuck_in_a_roundabout_loop/
Lack of empathy (Score:2)
A properly empathetic underpaid phone support worker would have at least played him some nice music on a tiny violin, to mitigate the absolute horror of slowly circling in the parking lot 8 times.
(My guess: there was a drain, and the AI was circling it)
Re: (Score:2)
i agree with the first part of your statement, that this is much ado about nothing, so i don't understand where the 2nd part comes from.
From a "taking a cab to the airport" transportation POV how is his overall experience materially different from being stuck in a traffic jam for 10 minutes?
My guess? Tempest in a tea cup.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, if a cabbie is driving in circles, its because he thinks you're a stupid tourist who doesn't know the area, so he is trying to rip you off by running up the meter... the impossibility of which is one of the selling points of the likes of Uber and Waymo in the first place. If a Waymo gets itself stuck into a loop you at least know it's an error, not deliberate malice.
Re: (Score:2)
Just making a shitty "circling" joke. Though I imagine whatever was causing the double rerouting (visible in the video where the car shows its intended path) is going to be excised from the code.
Also, I would consider this much worse than being stuck in traffic for a while. More comparable to eg the cabbie falling asleep at the wheel without causing an accident -- no one likes a reminder that the AI controlling the vehicle can fail in unexpected non-human ways.
Teething problems (Score:3)
Well, duh. Every technology has these kinds of teething issues. It's more interesting that the issues reported are so small. Waymo has done hundreds thousands of rides, and so far the complaints are mostly of this kind.
That being said, a way to do an emergency stop that can't be overridden is probably a good idea.
Re: (Score:1)
I think the problem is that their teething problems are taking place on roads human beings drive on and these are multi-ton vehicles moving at high speeds.
Basically everyone in the city is being forced to take part in a extended alpha test whether they agreed to or not.
Re: (Score:2)
> I think the problem is that their teething problems are taking place on roads human beings drive on and these are multi-ton vehicles moving at high speeds.
Waymo so far has been far safer than human drivers. Your point would stand if there were no cars, and Waymo suddenly decided to introduce them into the society.
\o/ (Score:1)
Isn't this kind of taxi scam usually reserved for out-of-towners?
"Haven't we already been over this bridge twice?"
"Trapped" (Score:2, Informative)
Oh how scary. Except actually: "If at any time you want to end your ride early, tap the Pull over button in your app or on the passenger screen, and the car will find a safe spot to stop. "
[1]https://support.google.com/way... [google.com]
[1] https://support.google.com/waymo/answer/9172373?hl=en
Re:"Trapped" (Score:5, Insightful)
... unless "not only was he unable to stop the car" means he tried the button and it didn't work.
Re: (Score:2)
I think the bigger miracle is that he was able to reach somebody at google. It should probably occur to him that this...
> Johns, who ironically works in the tech industry himself, says he would love to see services like Waymo succeed, but he has no plans to hop in for a ride until he's sure that the kinks have been fixed. In the meantime, he's still waiting for someone from Waymo to contact him in regards to his concerns, which hasn't yet happened despite how much attention his video has attracted since last week.
...aint happenin'.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
" the car will find a safe spot to stop." not "its an emergency stop button". the car obviously couldnt find a safe spot to stop which is why it kept circling....
Re: (Score:3)
Could not have happened to a more suitable candidate, too.
> Mike Johns is a tactician who sits at the intersection of tech, entertainment, media, and politics — providing creative direction, message development, content strategy, and a 360 approach to business development and growth.
> Operating in Los Angeles, Johns serves clients globally with London as his second home. Johns leverages his diverse experience and connection to enhance the image and reputation of public figures, artists, businesses, organizations, and agendas that move the world forward. Goal, impact 1 billion people within the next ten years. He has been featured on Fox News, Wireless Weekly, Los Angeles Times, Variety, Vibe, Black Enterprise, Mobile Entertainment and is among Hollywood’s who’s who decision makers.
> ASK ME ABOUT:
> DATA | BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY | AUTONOMOUS CARS | SMART CITIES | INTERNET OF EVERYTHING | ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | CONSUMER ELECTRONICS | DIGITAL LITERACY | ROBOTICS | ENTERTAINMENT | POP CULTURE | INFLUENCER MARKETING | FUTURE OF WORK | SPACE EXPLORATION | EDUCATION
The tactician and renowned expert on autonomous cars, who could not find his way out of a robotaxi... LOL.
Hardware Stop (Score:3)
Most machines in contact with human need to have an emergency off button for safety. Having a button in an app that tells a computer to please stop is fine but when something goes wrong you need a "disconnect engine from power" hardware button that a computer cannot override. While that opens the possibility for the car to stop somewhere unsafe that's the human rider's responsibility not to push it on e.g. a motorway.
Having no way to physically disconnect the power is not safe - humans can recognize far