When the idea of autonomous cars was first floated, conversations about safety centred on things like who would be held responsible in a crash. Meanwhile, society’s most vulnerable people were excited by the prospect: riding completely alone in an otherwise empty taxi seems like the best option possible when it comes to personal safety. Unfortunately, too many of us failed to foresee this scenario.
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Here’s the scene: a 28-year-old woman gets into a Waymo robotaxi in San Francisco. (The company operates an autonomous and driverless taxi company, and is owned by Alphabet Inc., the same conglomerate behind Google and several other major brands.) While on the way to her destination, two men—complete strangers to her—step out into the road in front of the Waymo, and so the car brings itself to a stop. All the Waymo robotaxi knows is there are humans in its way, so it remains firmly at a standstill. Meanwhile, the woman is left sitting in the car helpless as the men begin leering at her, harassing her, and demanding her phone number.
There’s no way to manually override a Waymo, so the woman—whose name is Amina, according to her X handle—begins filming the incident. In the video she posted to X, she can be heard yelling, “Get out of the way! Move! …I have to go, please stop! You’re holding up traffic!” She later describes the situation in her post as “scary,” and says, “It left me stuck as the car was stalled in the street. Thankfully, it only lasted a few minutes …Ladies please be aware of this.”
This altercation ended without incident, but it’s easy to picture how it could have been much worse. It exposes a vulnerability driverless fleet operators may not yet have considered. If bad actors are willing to stand in front of an autonomous vehicle and to block its progress, and there’s nothing the occupants can do about it, they’re sitting ducks.
And this is why so many of us would choose the bear. Suddenly, what appeared to be the safest transportation method possible for women and other vulnerable people doesn’t look the least bit safe. Waymo and other autonomous vehicle developers—and, frankly, many among the rest of us—grossly underestimated just how poorly behaved some people can be. It’s time to take this concept back to the drawing board before someone gets hurt.
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