Besides convenience, one of the main benefits of self-driving cars is supposed to be safety.
Yet in a bizarre move, Waymo — whose self-driving cabs had been enjoying extraordinary safety metrics — has just taken steps to make its robotaxis more human-like, eroding the safety narrative that’s been central to the autonomous vehicle narrative.
Recent reporting by The Wall Street Journal observed a startling change in Waymos’ road etiquette, a new aggressive streak that would make a BMW driver blush. These include illegal U-turns, aggressive lane switching, rolling through cross walks, and running red lights.
@tonytins@pawb.social a bit sensational way to frame this. There’s no evidence that the cited examples in the original article are a result of the changes or that they’re necessarily making changes that would make the Waymo Driver less safe.
There’s that potential and the mentioned real problems are worth some attention regardless but some of these changes sound like they’re motivated by just addressing situations where Waymo is unable to make the decisions any safe driver would because there are conflicting rules to follow for example…