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Waymo issued a recall after two robotaxis crashed into the same pickup truck (www.engadget.com)

submitted 9 months ago by GlitzyArmrest to c/technology

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Last year, two Waymo robotaxis in Phoenix "made contact" with the same pickup truck that was in the midst of being towed, which prompted the Alphabet subsidiary to issue a recall on its vehicles' software. A "recall" in this case meant rolling out a software update after investigating the issue and determining its root cause.

In a blog post, Waymo has revealed that on December 11, 2023, one of its robotaxis collided with a backwards-facing pickup truck being towed ahead of it. The company says the truck was being towed improperly and was angled across a center turn lane and a traffic lane. Apparently, the tow truck didn't pull over after the incident, and another Waymo vehicle came into contact with the pickup truck a few minutes later. Waymo didn't elaborate on what it meant by saying that its robotaxis "made contact" with the pickup truck, but it did say that the incidents resulted in no injuries and only minor vehicle damage. The self-driving vehicles involved in the collisions weren't carrying any passenger.

After an investigation, Waymo found that its software had incorrectly predicted the future movements of the pickup truck due to "persistent orientation mismatch" between the towed vehicle and the one towing it. The company developed and validated a fix for its software to prevent similar incidents in the future and started deploying the update to its fleet on December 20.

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[–] indomara 15 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I still don't understand how these are allowed. One is not allowed to let a Tesla drive without being 100% in control and ready to take the wheel at all times, but these cars are allowed to drive around autonomously?

If I am driving my car, and I hit a pedestrian, they have legal recourse against me. What happens when it was an AI or a company or a car?

[–] kava 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You have legal recourse against the owner of the car, presumably the company that is profiting from the taxi service.

You see these all the time in San Francisco. I'd imagine the vast majority of the time, there are no issues. It's just going to be big headlines whenever some accident does happen.

Nobody seems to care about the nearly 50,000 people dying every year from human-caused car accidents

[–] CosmicCleric -3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Nobody seems to care about the nearly 50,000 people dying every year from human-caused car accidents

I would actually wager that's not true, it's just that the people we elect tend to favor the corporations and look after their interests moreso than the people who elected them, so we end up being powerless to do anything about it.

[–] kava 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

sure, but why do these accidents caused by AI drivers get on the news consistently and yet we rarely see news about human-caused accidents? it's because news reports what is most interesting - not exactly accurate or representative of the real problems of the country

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Yeah same reason why a single EV fire is national news but an ICE fire is just an unnoteworthy, everyday occurrence.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

The company is at fault. I don't think there's laws currently in place that say a vehicle has to be manned on the street, just that it uses the correct signals and responds correctly to traffic, but I may be wrong. It may also be local laws.