Wapo journalist verifies that robotaxis fail to stop for pedestrians in marked crosswalk 7 out of 10 times. Waymo admitted that it follows “social norms” rather than laws.
The reason is likely to compete with Uber, 🤦
Wapo article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/12/30/waymo-pedestrians-robotaxi-crosswalks/
Cross-posted from: https://mastodon.uno/users/rivoluzioneurbanamobilita/statuses/113746178244368036
I think the reason non-tech people find this so difficult to comprehend is the poor understanding of what problems are easy for (classically programmed) computers to solve versus ones that are hard.
if ( person_at_crossing ) then { stop }To the layperson it makes sense that self-driving cars should be programmed this way. Aftter all, this is a trivial problem for a human to solve. Just look, and if there is a person you stop. Easy peasy.
But for a computer, how do you know? What is a ‘person’? What is a ‘crossing’? How do we know if the person is ‘at/on’ the crossing as opposed to simply near it or passing by?
To me it’s this disconnect between the common understanding of computer capability and the reality that causes the misconception.
I think you could liken it to training a young driver who doesn’t share a language with you. You can demonstrate the behavior you want once or twice, but unless all of the observations demonstrate the behavior you want, you can’t say “yes, we specifically told it to do that”