[22801] in Privacy_Forum
[ PRIVACY Forum ] Script of my national radio report yesterday on
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lauren Weinstein)
Tue Dec 23 11:17:02 2025
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2025 08:09:18 -0800
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
To: privacy-dist@vortex.com
Message-ID: <20251223160918.GA13168@vortex.com>
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This is the script of my national radio report yesterday on the Waymo
robotaxis meltdown in San Francisco Saturday, and other robocar
issues. As always there may have been minor wording variations from
this script as I presented the report live on air.
- - -
Yes, the prolonged Saturday San Francisco power failure and the
related meltdown of Waymo robotaxi operations there is a serious
harbinger of things to come. It could have been catastrophic. Google
was lucky that their Waymo failures Saturday didn't contribute to any
deaths. Waymos frozen at intersections, inside intersections, in the
middle of turns, sometimes multiple Waymos stopped lined up in packs,
many Waymos creating massive traffic jams around the city that
reportedly in some cases were blocking emergency vehicles.
Imagine sitting in a Waymo frozen in the middle of an intersection on
a rainy night during a power failure, with other cars whizzing by
trying to get past you. Awful.
Google will make excuses-- traffic signals being out may have been
part of their problems -- but how could they not have anticipated such
a situation? Imagine major fires or earthquakes. Picture robocars
unable to reach their human overseers in control centers, or those
centers not reacting fast enough during a mass disaster. Robocars
blocking escape routes or otherwise behaving in haywire ways making
terrible situations vastly worse.
There have previously been many instances of Waymos and other
driverless vehicles causing problems for emergency and other workers.
A Waymo recently drove into what was reportedly closed off police
activities. Waymo is being investigated for repeatedly driving past
school buses with "do not pass" red lights on -- children loading or
unloading. And MANY other incidents.
When there's no human driver -- police, fire, other emergency workers
or others can't just tap on the car's window and tell them to get out
of the way, or to stay where they are. Driverless vehicles have NO
common sense, and the list of potential situations that can confuse
them, even in perfect weather, is seemingly endless.
Also in San Francisco very recently, a Waymo killed a beloved
neighborhood cat. Yes, human drivers kill many animals, but this case
was unnecessary and is a giant red flag. The cat had crawled under the
car. Bystanders tried to stop the car from leaving while they tried to
extract the cat. The Waymo ignored them. They were understandably
scared to block the car with their bodies. They didn't have time to
try use phone apps to contact Waymo operations. The car pulled out and
killed the cat. What if it had been a toddler who had crawled under
there?
Just as it's nuts that there's no way to quickly get these cars to
move out of a dangerous situation, it's also crazy that they don't
have emergency stop buttons on the outside like we have in so many
other systems in our lives. Elevators, subways, trains, escalators and
many more, and of course fire alarms are also widely required. Robocar
fanboys will say an emergency stop button on the outside could be
abused. Yeah, that's true, just like how all those other emergency
stop buttons and alarms can be abused, and occasionally they are
abused. But we STILL HAVE THEM, because they ARE NECESSARY.
Waymo and other driverless vehicles are currently bringing us the
worst of two worlds. They can cause dangerous situations both when
they get stuck motionless, and by moving when they should sit still.
This serves to dramatically demonstrate how inappropriate it is to be
deploying these still experimental vehicles so rapidly on public
streets. Proponents may often use questionable statistics to claim
these vehicles drive more safely than humans, but when something even
a bit unexpected happens, these cars can behave utterly stupidly and
unnecessarily put lives at risk.
We don't need politicians palling around with these Big Tech
Billionaire CEOs who are forcing this tech into our lives long before
it's ready, if it ever really is. We need our leaders standing up to
these CEOs to protect our communities. It's not just a matter of
Waymos driving neighborhoods crazy with robocar traffic and horns
bleeping all night anymore. There are so many serious problems with
robocars that I don't even have time to get into now. We are NOT
guinea pigs, and this tech needs to be put on a very short regulatory
leash before a true calamity occurs. Enough is enough!
- - -
L
- - -
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com (https://www.vortex.com/lauren)
Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
Mastodon: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren
Signal: By request on need to know basis
Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org
PRIVACY Forum: https://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility
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