I've been in San Francisco recently. In my daughter's neighborhood the streets are too narrow to allow two-way passing, so one vehicle needs to pull over (cars packed on both sides, and driveways are very narrow). I was heading downhill and I see a Waymo coming up. The Waymo found a nook, pulled over to let me pass and I rolled by without a hitch.

Is this even discussion. In the very first paragraph of the summary.

> The company states its vehicles choose parking based on local regulations, existing vehicle distribution, and proximity to high-demand areas but cannot explain the algorithmic specificity.

>> And there you have it. No news report required. The most obvious answer is also the most likely. The car is parked in front of that particular location because it's very likely close to a central point to where the majority of it's rides will originate.

>> Next, do an article on why water is wet.

"systems optimizing for specific spots without variation"

Pretty obviously exactly this. equidistant from A, B, and C or something like that. All they need to do is add in a small random factor to whatever algorithm they are using.

These are meant for humans, who would give up taking a car there if they need to re-park it every 3h, while it does nothing for self-driving cars (if anything it creates even more congestion from the cars re-shuffling all the time and is pissing away some energy too).

Next step (if not done already) is to play musical chairs between Waymos intentionally.