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Self-Driving Cars Are Being Attacked By Angry Californians (theguardian.com)
According to incident reports collected by the California department of motor vehicles, some Californians are purposely colliding with self-driving cars. The Guardian reports: On January 10, a pedestrian in San Francisco's Mission District ran across the street to confront a GM Cruise autonomous vehicle that was waiting for people to cross the road, according to an incident report filed by the car company. The pedestrian was "shouting," the report states, and "struck the left side of the Cruise AV's rear bumper and hatch with his entire body." No injuries occurred, but the car's left tail light was damaged. In a separate incident just a few blocks away on January 28, a taxi driver in San Francisco got out of his car, approached a GM Cruise autonomous vehicle and "slapped the front passenger window, causing a scratch." The police were not called in either case.
I wonder what good they think that will do? Its not going to offend the car, or cause it to retaliate. Its also not going to stop progress on this front.
William George
'nuff said!
What do people expect to happen from attacking robots?
Companies won't look the other way forever, especially once serious damage occurs.
And stranding delivery robots? That's just rude - and asking for civil charges.
We encourage self expression but also shit all over a big portion of our population (economically speaking). The result is vandalism. They're not thinking in terms of stopping progress. They're just angry. Usually because they lack good economic prospects.
Countries like Japan deal with this by discouraging expression. They also have unusually high suicide rates. I suppose we could also not abandon a large chunk of our population to economic desolation, but, well, that costs money. And we're nothing if not cheapskates.
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We are busy trying to prevent human collisions with this tech. Seems like they're not ready to give up just yet.
slapped the front passenger window, causing a scratch
Really? That must be really low quality glass or the person must have had some serious fingernails (claws?) in order to scratch glass. Maybe person was wearing big rings? Anyway I am curious as to how the glass got scratched or if the statement is just hyperbole.
If it were not for the police not being called in either situation we might have people trying to get insurance money. These people weren't by chance Chinese? (not the video I wanted but you get the idea)
News for nerds from the 19th century.
... that they will get violent and try to stop it by force. This usually just reduced their capability to deal with change and does nothing to stop or delay change at all.
At this time the only thing that can be reasonably expected to stop self-driving cars is the collapse of civilization.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Way to go pissing off the robots people.
the machines would eventually concludes the root cause of most collisions had been the humans and their elimination would go a long way toward traffic safety...
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
What we need is a self-driving car with a fake wooden driver, so as not to alarm the other humans traveling on the road.
hat tip: horsey horseless.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
I can't wait until the food delivery robots start making their rounds.
All it would take would be a crowbar for random people to get access to regular food deliveries.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
They are not beating on it because it is self-driving. They are beating on it because it is a GM.
I cannot wait for these money pits to show up all over the streets. I have a very well thought out plan about how to get very rich from these driver less cars. It is not ethical, but it is legal, for now!
that leaving expensive equipment unattended on city streets would invite vandalism. Next you're going to tell me that cash registers need attendants and copper wire should be stored in fenced lots or locked warehouses.
Home of fruits, nuts and flakes..
Not everybody there is crazy of course, but they have more than their fair share of that part of the gene pool...
Attacking driverless cars? Really guys? Who exactly are you trying to communicate with?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Hey, this was posted a month ago here.
Interestingly, search does not turn anything up, but I am not in the habit of reading incident reports, and I definitely read about this a long time ago.
Self-driving cars meticulously observe speed limits and stop signs, which I suppose would piss off California drivers. But why would PEDESTRIANS attack a car that has carefully stopped for them. If it hadn't, it wouldn't be vulnerable to attack in the first place.
Would it be possible to put that self driving technology into a 1958 Plymouth Fury?
enough to let them drive, you might as well give them CCW permits.
Tell us how great the bay area is again?
They've been attacked by angry slashdotters for years.
someday taxi drivers will be obsolete, because someday when you call a taxi one of these autonomous cars will come and give you a ride, and you will pay with either a credit card or smartphone app
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I mean, seriously biased. The title should be: Freedom Fighters from the Future Engage in Skirmishes with Machines to Push Back Judgement Date.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
I mentioned earlier in a comment that I thought autonomous vehicles would be come mobile billboards for taggers.
;)
Going to be Interesting when! I also think they will be magnets for those wanting to do vandalism.
they will soon fit right in with our urban areas, becoming disgusting to anyone who might think about using them..
You can not take urban vandalism and collapse out of the city.
. Just my 2 cents
Wait for the third and they'll declare it an epidemic.
So it has come to this (obligatory xkcd)
The question is not whether people are attacking driverless cars.
Of course they are. Because people attack normal, manual cars. Several movies have scenes where people go down the street and hit every single car parked on the street.
The right question is: "Is the average driverless car attacked more often then the average car?"
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
It's San Francisco. The crazies and drugged out homeless sometimes do this with regular cars and other things, they don't give a $#!7 and no one else really wants to own the problem. The only difference here is that autonomous cars have video and logging so there's a clear record. As someone that works in San Francisco, crazier $#!7 than this happens all the time. Just a few months ago, someone set fire to the kids playground at Golden Gate park. Friends cars get broken into all the time, and bicycles get stolen. The local police rarely catch who's doing it, and when they do it's a light slap of the wrist (or another unpaid fine) and the vandals are out doing it again in a couple of hours.
Would not surprise me.
nobody wants dead customers. Plus any damage sufficient to kill is sufficient to dent the car. Again, more cost.
Now, that said, none of this will prevent them from doing the following calculation:
Take x cost of making self driving car safe.
Take y cost of paying settlements to the deceased relatives.
If x - y is positive, don't bother making the car safe.
This is why we need government regulation. We (mostly) do it today with regular boring old cars.
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Purposely. Sure. Whatever they say. Do you honestly think they would openly admit that this tech is junk (and it is, for sll intents snd purposes). Not likely, it'll be someone else's fault until they have no choice but to be honest with everyone, including themselves.
In Soviet California, pedestrian runs into you!
William George
This is simply a response to the failure to communicate. In CA as in many other places, it is customary for drivers and pedestrians to enjoy a lively communication. This typically involves vigorous hand, arm and facial body language as well as enthusiastic vocal invitations to do various things with various body parts.
In order to comply with this tradition, my wife and I would share this responsibility. Whichever was NOT driving the vehicle would yell at the assholes in other vehicles, and pedestrians who got out of the way, and apply the appropriate gestures. In this fashion, the driver was relieved of the duty and able to focus clearly on the next target down the road.
Self-driving cars are not yet sophisticated enough to participate in this essential communication, which causes understandable frustration.
...omphaloskepsis often...
Wait, you're defending vandalism by saying you think other people are stupid?
That doesn't exactly make your opinion very credible, you know.
...self driving cars will be obstacles
They will be slow, very slow.. kinda like a stoned old dude
People will attempt all sorts of extreme maneuvers to get around them
Most will succeed, some will fail
Why can't people who otherwise are useless / obsolete just learn to code?
You and the AC both are paranoid as fuck. The old line is old for a reason. Humans DO suck at driving. Always have, always will. You know this. You probably cuss a dumbass driver 3 or 4 times a day on your commute. But numbers be damned if it doesn't fit your ideals, amirite?
It probably wasn't scratched at all but for the car's owner to properly sue and/or file insurance, some kind of damages have to be present. It could have been a smudge, paint mark from the softer material, or whatever. The police don't care, they see a mark, they write it down.
That is all of us. All Californians are angry. Wouldn't you be if you were taxed like us?
I've long maintained that whether or not self-driving cars succeed will depend on what happens to the liability. Right now, when two drivers get into an accident, the fact that they're both people creates a natural balance. Neither side is favored, resulting in blame and liability being properly assigned.
But if there's an accident between a person and a machine, there's a natural tendency to blame things on the machine. Car suddenly accelerates out of control? It must be a malfunction with the accelerator. There's no way it could be due to the person accidentally pressing the accelerator instead of the brake. If that's how liability in accidents is going to be handled, then self-driving cars are doomed. Any car company who sells a significant number of them would be bankrupted by the liability lawsuits.
That's pretty much what TFA is describing. While road rage incidents happen between human drivers, apparently the threshold for raging is lower when the other car is self-driving because you're not hurting a person, just an unfeeling machine..
R we sure they weren't just windshield washers wanting payment?
The police were not called in either case.
Well of course not. This is California, where the lawbreaker is always in the right.
Those new headlights that project images onto the roadway would be perfect.
This sounds like whackos in San Francisco, which is a s*** hole. Not 'Cali' per se?
Cowards seem to talk to themselves a lot, all over sector space...trying to be heard on every subject...making the most comments...trying to sound most wise so people will respect his/her opinions....because they make so many comments...therefore, their opinions must be correct. Why else would the make so many bloody comments. Or is it merely to annoy?
Anyone else amused that the article conflates SF with the entirety of CA? News flash, folks: SF, LA and SD could very well be their own distinct state, with everyone else making up a very very red state.
Personally, I'd love to see that. Give them what they want; their own state. Their own echo chamber to do with as they please.
It'd be even more amusing than some random dumbass conflating SF with the entire state of CA.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I've not seen anything in any of these articles that seems to explain why people are doing this? Stupidity?
Europe is full of idealist White Idiots who waste half of their life to obtain a useless education, to be member of some crazy communist organisation. All while complaining that everything is wrong, unjust, dangerous, poisoned etc etc.
Meanwhile the arabs have large families, the chinese are working hard and supply the entire world with their products. Likewise, the Indians reproduce and the affluent ones produce lots of software and IT services also for the entire world.
The bottom line is that Europe is full of people who have outsourced their thinking and action to others. Little wonder Europe goes down the crapper.
Do the engineers and medicuses build houses, paint houses, renovate houses and build roads ? Do they fix the toilet and the plumbing ?
Not they don't. That's where the people you mentioned should be working.
Maybe that does not fly because the 1% elite have allowed cheap immigrants to take these jobs.
When I lived in Atlanta ca. 2000 the cleaners of our nice office were Mexicans and the beggars outside were black Americans.
The AI we have today isn't real AI as we have in scifi, but imagine we ever get to that point and humans start acting this way. Can you blame the AI for wanting to fight back?
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
America just elected a president who is painted as a devil, imbecile, Hitler, etc etc by the 1% controlled media.
Trump is FOR protecting local industries against the subsidized or largely unregulated (==super dirty) industries of China, India and similar countries.
But you know what ? That might reduce the growth of Apple, Goldmann Sachs, Microsoft, Google and their shareholders a bit, due to counter tariff increases. That is why they demonize him.
So we have indeed a Patriotic Alternative to the free trade orthodoxy. It is not the internationalist-communist alternative of the leftist loons, but sure as hell it is an alternative. Actually it is Democracy Working, but of course the fat corporations do not like Democracy. What they yearn for is the Rule of Money, because Money is the only determinant of their reference system.
If you believe in the crazy justice system of America, that may be true. Where you can get crazy compensation for a small technical fault.
Never mind that on average automated systems already reduce the number of people killed in car accidents dramatically. Automated brakes will reduce the number killed easily by 20%. ABS is a major contributor to safety.
But yeah, if you listen to the lawyers you need to nail the manufacturers to a wall. This is the only way to fund a nice villa plus 6 SUVs for the lawyer and his family.
In the quest to portray "rage against the machines" the Guardian sacrifices objectivity and honesty. They didn't even properly remain consistent with their own prior reporting. In the article a robot used by the SPCA is mentioned. The Guardian gives the impression that the SPCA pulled the robot due to physical retaliation. But in an earlier Guardian article the fact that the SPCA did not get a permit for the robot to use the public sidewalk is listed as the real reason the SPCA decided to stop using the robot. So it wasn't so much a public rage incident as it was a "not worth the trouble to fill out a form and pay a permit fee" incident.
The two accounts involving cars are reports from GM. People can be biased when recounting traffic accidents. The "threw his body against the car" sounds suspiciously like "smashed his face against my fist." I can't say that is what the GM account actually is, but the Guardian acts as though that one side of the story is factual even when the account sounds rather extraordinary. The other account also has an extraordinary component. Apparently in the GM world you can scratch their windows by slapping them. In both incidents, very minor damage is reported and no police were called.
Could it not just be that very minor damage happens and the operator of the "autonomous" vehicle would rather tell a tale without the burden of police scrutiny to satisfy some paperwork requirement?
Theres nothing rational about it. Its not about jobs or economic situations. People have 0 tolerance when it comes to machines. How many times do people talk back to the self checkout machines or ATMS or yell at their computers and call them stupid. When the subject of drones come up, someone immediately says "shoot it down!" or "smash it with a bat". Any inconvenience a non-human and non-living thing causes on its own, we feel its our right to stop that lil fucker into the ground.
It seems the more autonomous and seemingly alive it is, the more we want to trash it. Probably has to do with that whole uncanny valley thing.
... the remake of Stephen King's "Christine" begins.
That is all this is.
People pissed that these things are following the law.
If you don't like waiting for people in crosswalks change the law.
Can't even go the speed limit without people freaking out and wondering why you can't be arrested for following the law.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B-Ox0ZmVIU
The idea that computerized artificial intellegence will necessarily be better then humans, is purest Superstition. "It's a computer, it has to be perfect!!"
The real name for them is AS (not AI), as in "Artificial Stupid". Letting one drive your car, unmonitored, is _really_ stupid. Those that have tried already, have found out the hard way...
And how would the GP do that, exactly? You know, "...provid[e] substantial backing or proof that this is how the future will come about".
It's the future. Predicting the future isn't scientific, not even if you overtly respect the known science.
They are angry? About what? Does vandalism originate only from angry people? The causal connection here is questionable.
Well, automakers and the government should really think about the regulations of these self-driving cars. There have been so many accidents that occurred with these cars involved in these past few months. I have also just read an article that talks about this at https://www.lemberglaw.com/sel.... We need fixed laws regarding these cars.
There is going to be so much carnage in the next decade.
I anticipate that California, New York, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia will ban autonomous vehicles before 2020.
Kriston
The argument that people in the US should have guns for self protection is a bad argument that does not stand up to reality. First of all, if the govt wants to take your guns, they will do it via tanks, planes, etc. A soldiers job and training is to know how to kill other people who have guns, and they do it with the most advanced weaponry. Your guns won't help.
Secondly, there is currently an arms race between private citizens and the police force. This makes the cops paranoid they will get shot, so they shoot first, ask questions later. If you are pulled over for speeding, have a gun, and mention it, you know, to not alarm the cop, he will shoot you. There is at least one video on the internet where exactly that occured. Having a gun, even looking like you have a gun, will get you shot. The gun is definitely not defending you in that case.
Lastly, those who own guns are more likely to die or have relatives who die from gunshot. Either the kids get in the guns or the intruder wrestles the gun away and uses it or whatever. If you take the guns out of the situation, it's a lot harder to have a fatal situation. That is the closest one gets in the modern age to self protection.