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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.

9 of 351 comments (clear)

  1. Re:All this tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This 'tech' has nothing to do with 'preventing human collisions' and everything to do with having more and more control over the population, their actions, and where they go and when. The nonsense about 'humans aren't capable of driving safely' is bullshit, cherry-picked data to scare people into giving up even more of their actual freedom: freedom of MOVEMENT. When everyone is relegated to SDCs with no controls for a human, then the police and the government will have total control over where and when people go places -- or if they go anywhere at all. Make transportation by any other method illegal, and voila, you have almost total control over the entire population. Put offenders, who dare to WALK somewhere, into for-profit prisions, essentially slave labor. Keep everyone else happy with Bread and Circuses, so they stay home and don't think for themselves.

  2. Go for the food delivery robots! by mspohr · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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?
  3. Re:It's just vandalism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    What about personal responsibility ?

    People who vandalize property which belongs to others have the maturity level of a young child, and a young child who has not been properly taught how to behave, at that.

    We are all responsible for our own lives. If you cannot handle that notion, maybe you should kill yourself so you don't burden others with your needy pathetic existence.

  4. Cali.... There is truth in this saying: by bobbied · · Score: 1, Interesting

    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
  5. Re:I wonder what good they think that will do? by slew · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wonder if they used buggy whips on the offending cars...

    They probably threw their shoes at the offending cars...

    "400 years ago, on Earth, workers who felt their livelihood threatened by automation, flung their wooden shoes called 'sabots' into the machines to stop them. Hence the word 'sabotage'." -- Lt. Valeris (in Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country)

  6. Re:As AI improves by slew · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That's how we'd know that we had true AI, because the machine thinking would be indistinguishable from that of humans.

    You seem to be propagating the unjustified assumption that humans are at the apex of "intelligence". I have reason to suspect that the apex of intelligence is not human intelligence (there seems to be lots of empirical evidence of this), so there's no reason to think that "true AI" would be indistinguishable from mere "human intelligence". It may turn out to be quite easy to distinguish between them.

    You never know, instead of eliminating humans, "true AI" may simply conclude that rather than attempting extermination, humans should simply be made happy to keep them out of trouble...

    We cannot allow any race as greedy and corruptible as yours to have free run of the galaxy.
    We shall serve them.
    Their kind will be eager to accept our service.
    Soon they will become completely dependent upon us.
    And we shall serve them and you will be happy, and controlled.
          -- Norman (TOS: I, Mudd)

    FWIW, the FAAMG companies seems to be busy creating a blueprint to follow if someone wanted to make humans dependent on AI...

    You never know, soon we'll be lamenting...

    You offer us only well-being.
    Food and drink and happiness mean nothing to us.
    We must be about our job.
    Suffering in torment and pain, laboring without end.
    Dying and crying and lamenting over our burdens.
    Only this way can we... be... happy.
          -- McCoy and Scotty (TOS: I, Mudd)

  7. Re:It's just vandalism by Tom · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It used to be very much not normal in Europe, and how shameful it is depends on how normal it is.

    When I grew up, I wasn't aware of a single unemployed person in my social circles. No parent or friend of parents or relative, not one. People who didn't work were either too young or too old.

    The older I get, the more unemployed people show up. Several of my friends are now unemployed. This is an intentional political shift to put pressure on people to accept low-paying jobs.

    When the movie "Falling Down" came out in 1993, I understood immediately why the protagonist is hiding that he lost his job, no explanation was necessary. I don't think you could show the movie to todays audiences without explaining that point.

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  8. Re: It's just vandalism by Tom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The last G20 happened in my home city, so don't think I have any sympathy for those looters and assholes whatsoever.

    That said, there is more to it than just riot tourism. Politics in the west have shifted so far to the neo-liberal model that we are basically back to debating how many angels can dance on a pin-head instead of which religion is better or if religion at all is good. The entire economical debates in politics of the past decade are running in circles around a tiny area of the total field of discourse. Unless you are a strict neo-liberalist, your views on wealth distribution, social justice and fair economic systems are not only not represented in politics anymore, nobody is even close enough to them to be an acceptable compromise.

    That leaves only the street. And yes, it is rarely the poor who protest, because they don't have the money or time to organize, travel somewhere to join a group or demonstration - they are busy surviving.

    The G20 riots specifically were stupid, counter-productive and very, very predictable. So much so that I'm with the conspiracy theorists that the riots were not only expected but provoked (actions in the days before) and maybe even "helped along" by agent provocateurs. So that the many, many peaceful protests didn't get media attention. Things probably got quite a bit out of hand in a "the spirits that I called" manner, if you guys are familiar with German poetry.

    So under the media image of Hamburg burning, there was a lot of effort to have an actual impact. It just didn't get much screen time.

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  9. Re: It's just vandalism by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    take you military home,

    While I agree we are in some places we don't really have business being....if we were to pull our military from all over the world, all the other allies we foot the bill for protecting, would have a really hard time.

    You'd have to likely drop your state sponsored medical and other social give outs...and, risk being targeted.

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........