No one was inside a Waymo car as it was destroyed.

A crowd destroyed a driverless Waymo car in San Francisco::A Waymo car was destroyed in San Francisco as a crowd began vandalizing it and ultimately set the car on fire. Nobody was in the vehicle at the time.

  • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
    4147·
    10 months ago

    Oh, well THANK GOD, no human driver has ever been known to block traffic or hold up emergency vehicles!

    What saints you all are for protecting the right of people to work thankless taxi jobs, and have the number one cause of preventable death be traffic fatalities. Nothing could be more noble than preserving the status quo!

    • PeppycitoEnglish
      275·
      10 months ago

      One thing human taxi drivers have over robotic ones is accountability.

      • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
        1220·
        10 months ago

        Lol, no they don’t.

        Do you know how many cab drivers execute illegal u-turns, park illegally, cut off cyclists, speed etc.? They literally never get caught or ticketed for anything unless they actually kill someone with their car.

        • PeppycitoEnglish
          161·
          10 months ago

          unless they actually kill someone with their car.

          So, which waze executive is going to prison after their car dragged a pedestrian down the street?

            • Malfeasant@lemmy.worldEnglish
              31·
              10 months ago

              That percentage is non zero. The percentage of Waze executives going to prison for it is zero.

              • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
                1·
                10 months ago

                Since their inception, Waymo vehicles have driven 5.3 million driverless miles in Phoenix, 1.8 million driverless miles in San Francisco, and a few thousand driverless miles in Los Angeles through the end of October 2023. And during all those miles, there were three crashes serious enough to cause injuries:

                • In July, a Waymo in Tempe, Arizona, braked to avoid hitting a downed branch, leading to a three-car pileup. A Waymo passenger was not wearing a seatbelt (they were sitting on the buckled seatbelt instead) and sustained injuries that Waymo described as minor.
                • In August, a Waymo at an intersection “began to proceed forward” but then “slowed to a stop” and was hit from behind by an SUV. The SUV left the scene without exchanging information, and a Waymo passenger reported minor injuries.
                • In October, a Waymo vehicle in Chandler, Arizona, was traveling in the left lane when it detected another vehicle approaching from behind at high speed. The Waymo tried to accelerate to avoid a collision but got hit from behind. Again, there was an injury, but Waymo described it as minor.

                The percentage of drivers who would be in prison with that record is precisely 0.

    • TheFriar@lemm.eeEnglish
      132·
      10 months ago

      Hey, I’m all for upending the status quo. But that “thankless job” is one people rely on. My dad included. This isn’t some noble act by a company to end meaningless, menial work. It’s a ploy by a company to cut those pesky “workers” out of the money. There’s no backup plan for the people who rely on driving for money—more people than ever, by the way. This is literally a profit boosting “evolution” in the continued unlivability crisis. This isn’t Star Trek. It’s seasons 3-4 of Mr. Robot.

      • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
        76·
        10 months ago

        This isn’t some noble act by a company to end meaningless, menial work. It’s a ploy by a company to cut those pesky “workers” out of the money.

        I mean, yeah. That’s why basically any corporation does anything, it’s a core function of how capitalism is supposed to work and continue to enrich society. Should we have not invented computers because it shuttered 4/5 of the paper mills in my dad’s home town?

        There’s no backup plan for the people who rely on driving for money—more people than ever, by the way.

        Yeah, but that’s a problem with government safety nets and supports, not with a company engineering a new technology.

        This is literally a profit boosting “evolution” in the continued unlivability crisis. This isn’t Star Trek. It’s seasons 3-4 of Mr. Robot.

        I would argue that it’s almost exactly Star Trek.

        • TheFriar@lemm.eeEnglish
          6·
          10 months ago

          I’d argue the opposite. Capitalism doesn’t enrich society. It enriches capitalism. Any “benefit” to society is purely for selfish reasons. Its motives being corrupt, its actions are not noble.

          [there being no safety nets] is a government problem, not a company’s

          Capitalism ruined this too. Lobbyists, special interest “donations” (read: bribes), are all done by companies just like this one. They’ll lobby for harmful laws, under the guise of “but driverless cars are for the people’s safety!” All the while, evading taxes and lobbying against closing those tax loopholes or raising taxes to help the workers who now have no job.

          These things don’t exist in a vacuum. Especially in today’s late stage of capitalism, there is no moral behavior from these companies, because they are wading into a world where their very existence offers them and seemingly implores them to do harm for their bottom line. There is no “church and state” separation between capital and governance. They are a rat king, further entangled by every new company making their way into this utterly corrupt marketplace of crookery and exploitation. We can’t ignore what’s happened over and over and over and over again because this time the benefit will surely outweigh the harm done to achieve profitability!

          • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
            24·
            10 months ago

            So you think that because the American government is corrupted by capital, destroying a Waymo car will lead to better regulation?

            Or an overthrow of capitalism to be replaced with which system of governance that isn’t also entangled with capital?

    • Taniwha420@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      10 months ago

      I want as few cars as possible, mixed zoning, and walkable cities.I don’t believe in a technocentris utopia. I want more quality relationships, and technology in our lives to be more restrained. I am in no way an advocate for the status quo (which by all accounts is AI and robot cars). Robot cars are a step in the wrong direction.

      • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        I want as few cars as possible, mixed zoning, and walkable cities

        agreed.

        Robot cars are a step in the wrong direction.

        You’ve made no argument as to why, or why the alternative of human drivers killing millions is better?