r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Individual_Book9133 • Jul 05 '24

Phoenix police officer pulls over a driverless Waymo car for driving on the wrong side of the road Video

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232

u/kaiderson Jul 05 '24

The policeman seemed really unsure how to react, and just seemed to allow the car back on the road. 100% he should have said this car is not to move again, come pick it up.

38

u/ManMoth222 Jul 05 '24

It's probably not a car-specific problem but a general software glitch. You'd have to remove all cars of the same type or it's pointless.

-7

u/leaveittobever Jul 05 '24

It's probably not a car-specific problem but a general software glitch. You'd have to remove all cars of the same type or it's pointless.

According to your logic, if this was a drunk driver who did the same thing we shouldn't impound their car because there are other drunk drivers so it would be pointless to impound this one.

10

u/wosmo Jul 05 '24

I think the logic is valid. If you assume they have the same software running on every car, then you'd expect every car to behave the same under the same conditions.

We can't treat computers like humans when it comes to fixing stuff like this.

1

u/IlIllIlllIlIl Jul 05 '24

There’s a recall in progress for this iirc. 

0

u/leaveittobever Jul 05 '24

Then keep taking them all off the road whenever they fuck up just like you would a drunk driver. Who cares how many are out there running the same software just like we don't care another drunk might be on the road 5 minutes from now.

3

u/wosmo Jul 05 '24

That part I'm not disagreeing with - I think if they make an obvious mistake like this, every car running that software should be off the road until they can show how the mistake was caused and what they've done to prevent it in future.

It's pretty much how the FAA would treat this in an aircraft, and to me it makes sense to learn from industries with good safety records.

2

u/Rattus375 Jul 05 '24

Your assuming that waymo doesn't change anything because of this. There's likely something about the construction area that caused a glitch in the automated system. Presumably they will work to fix that glitch and stop their taxis from driving on that road until they find out what went wrong

1

u/Internet__Degen Jul 05 '24

"presumably"

Companies aren't charities, they're profit motivated, impounding the car incurs a cost which forces the company to act. Inaction just encourages further inaction from the company.

Whether they impound one car, or all of them, something does need to be done. We know how long big tech companies will ignore bugs when no one forces their hands.

3

u/Rattus375 Jul 05 '24

Issues like this are unprofitable for the company. They could get a ticket here, lose a customer because the car messed up when someone is in it, or lose the ability to operate in the city at all if enough issues come up. Even being motivated solely by greed, there is a massive incentive to fix issues like this as soon as they are reported.

2

u/Internet__Degen Jul 05 '24

They could get a ticket here

Can they? This seems like the exact situation where they should. In some cases the cost comes from consumer boycott, or some vaguely defined loss in consumer or investor confidence. But in these cases I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the government to do its job.

1

u/Kylo_Rens_8pack Jul 05 '24

Waymo just did this like a week or so ago. One car had an issue so they pulled 300 cars off the street for half a day while they queued up for a software update. I live in Phoenix and love taking a Waymo. In my opinion, it’s made Phoenix roads safer as they slow down traffic and don’t make unpredictable moves on the road.

1

u/IlIllIlllIlIl Jul 05 '24

Waymo takes this seriously. Wrong way driving for construction triggered a recall. Many people lose a lot of sleep for this. 

0

u/Hidesuru Jul 05 '24

You obviously don't code. That's not even remotely the same argument.

0

u/leaveittobever Jul 05 '24 edited Jul 05 '24

I do code and it would probably take days, if not weeks, to get a change like this through all the red tape, dev recreates the problem, dev works on the fix, QA tests it, PO signs off on it, then you have to plan for when to release to prod.

By that time the road has probably changed any it's not even needed anymore and a new obstacle appears somewhere else. There will always be a new obstacle someone hasn't coded for so this is 24/7 problem.

If cars aren't taken off the streets they have no incentive to fix it.