Technology

Just last week I had to run over some mother fuckers

It do be like that sometimes

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The victim's statement here ends with an oddly volunteered tangent and specific praise of driverless vehicles, before it finally takes an eerie turn in the last sentence...

"...With that said, I think the Human Factor in this issue is going to be a lot harder to solve than anything else.” ....FREEZE CITIZEN!

I do hope she's okay, and those two folks seem to be clowns, but this thing also all reads as likely guerilla marketing for Waymo - who the article informs me, in a very capitalism-friendly turn of events, that they now have their service open to the public in 3 cities, cars have a safety feature that checked in with her multiple times and they "rewarded" her with an extra ride. It's a light enough "crime", with a very engineered feeling and enough to feel "real" while providing ready fodder for morning radio talk shows, Jimmy Fallon and good morning America talking heads to drone on about this morning across America as time filler that quietly advertises waymo "saving" a person from the scary outside world.

Note: Also, was very funny that throughout drafting my comment here "waymo" was constantly being autocorrected to "say no" :)

Give it a couple of years they'll legalise running down pedestrians for self drive cars. Can't have these jackalopes affecting the bottom line

“The men came over to the car again and stood in front of it for a few minutes. Finally when they left, the car was still stalled but I clicked the ‘in car support’ on the screen and they seemed to be aware of the issue,” Amina said. “They asked if I was OK and the car began to drive towards my location. They asked if I needed police support and I said no.”

When she was almost to her destination, Waymo support called her again to ask if she was ok, she said. “I assured him that I was fine and he told me I would be given a free ride after,” she said. “After many hours I was called one last time by their support team. They asked if I was OK and told me that they have 24/7 support available. They also said I would get the next ride or next two rides (uncertain) free.”

While scary, I'm left kinda impressed by Waymo's support.

This made me wonder though...the car obviously has cameras on the outside, and there's also a way to communicate with the support team from inside...so is it a stretch to think that these cars could be auto-recording everything that's happening inside the car?

Should we - as riders - have any expectation of privacy in a car with no driver?

In an instance like this, our riders have 24/7 access to Rider Support agents who will help them navigate the situation in real time

Clearly that's what a human driver would do, but I guess those Rider Support Agents work for free, so why not fire the driver? /s