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.

Comments

I wonder what good they think that will do?

[WilliamGeorge]

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.

Re:I wonder what good they think that will do?

[psmoot]

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

Bite your tongue! Buggies are beautiful and gentle animals. Be grateful we are past the dark and savage era when someone could whip an innocent enslaved buggy with impunity!

You sir are a cad!

Re:I wonder what good they think that will do?

[mark-t]

I imagine they think it will annoy the owner enough to not want to deal with the hassle of owning such a vehicle.

Re:I wonder what good they think that will do?

[slew]

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)

Re: I wonder what good they think that will do?

[slazzy]

Start a, new business: dummies for driverless cars to make them look like they are being driven by someone.

It's just vandalism

[rsilvergun]

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.

Re:It's just vandalism

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:It's just vandalism

[jwhyche]

Fucking hippies. This is why we can't have nice things. Like robot overlords.....

Re:It's just vandalism

[psmoot]

They're just angry. Usually because they lack good economic prospects.

OK, those two bozos are outliers. Ignore them. But I wonder about your comment. I suspect a lot of the protesters about this and that have good prospects and are seriously out of touch with those who don't. I can imagine (but can't prove) that poor people are too worried about paying rent and not getting harassed by the police to worry about self-driving cars.

Re:It's just vandalism

[Anonymous Coward]

If you cannot handle that notion, maybe you should kill yourself so you don't burden others with your needy pathetic existence.

Talking about maturity and then making the above statement, irony level: EPIC

Re:It's just vandalism

[angel'o'sphere]

Countries like Japan deal with this by discouraging expression.
Expression of what?
Ever been in Japan? Guessed so ...

They also have unusually high suicide rates.
But not for the reasons you think.

In Japan unemployment is a shame.
In America it is a disgrace.
In Europe it is _normal_

Re: It's just vandalism

[c6gunner]

It's rarely the poor who are out there protesting these things. The people at the G20 and "occupy Wall Street" protests may have looked homeless, but the vast majority were quite well off. It's not about actual impact, it's about ideology, and spoiled overgrown children looking for a cause.

Re:It's just vandalism

[crgrace]

Many, many people in SF lack good economic prospects. There are a lot of highly educated engineers and physicians, sure, but these aren't the folks that are attacking self-driving cars.

We have a large population of dead-end folks living day-to-day in Single-Occupancy Residences (essentially run down hotels), shelters, housing projects, and on the streets. They are largely unskilled and many of them are not mentally balanced.

We also have economically disadvantaged neighborhoods with large numbers of people who don't (or can't) graduate high-school. Where is there a place for them in the new economy?

If you ever visit San Francisco, what will strike you is the extreme mismatch between the upper-middle class and the poor. We have a lot of both and not as many blue-color traditionally middle-class folks. The working class mostly commutes.

Re:It's just vandalism

[Immerman]

You want to balance the breeding rate? It's easy enough to do - give the "undesirable" women easy access to cost- and stigma-free birth control, and good family planning education. People are never going to stop humping like bunnies, so give them a reliable option to avoid reproducing because of it, of the same sort that wealthy people make regular use of. It's worked extremely well pretty much everywhere it's been tried, as is pretty much the only thing that has actually worked.

You take a huge step in the direction you want to go, and you do it without genocide, in a way that actually helps the undesirables improve their situation and themselves. But just try to get that past the "moral majority" in the US.

Re: It's just vandalism

[pedz]

Well... you are neglecting something called consequences. Sure, it is "illegal" or "improper" to kill folks or vandalize cars and often those who do that go to jail or whatever.

But it is also illegal as well as immoral to utterly fuck over your fellow citizen with your greed and usually those folks do not go to jail. But, karma still comes around and shits on them by way of being vandalized, assassinated, and taunted a second time.

Its all good man.!

Re: It's just vandalism

[Pfhorrest]

Your point of confusion is thinking that the left is in favor of blacks, hispanics, etc, against whites, while the right is for whites against everyone else. In fact, the left is in favor of everyone being equally free, and if more blacks and hispanics would freely choose to have fewer kids if presented with the opportunity than white people would, that's not against the left's aims, because the left isn't trying to breed blacks and hispanics, just to let them live.

Re:It's just vandalism

[Tom]

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.

Re: It's just vandalism

[Tom]

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.

Re:It's just vandalism

[Tom]

The second thing that actually worked is universal health care and pension systems.

For the poor, children are who will shelter and feed you when you are old. Unless you address that incentive to have many children, birth control alone will have a limited impact because people still want several kids.

Re:It's just vandalism

[gweihir]

Indeed. Most poor women wit lots of children would have stopped early or not have had children at all if given the knowledge and the tools. But the deranged religiots need more believers, so contraception is evil.

Re: It's just vandalism

[cayenne8]

No, Americans do NOT need assault rifles. Or any form of fully automatic weapon. Semi-automatics even are debatable.

I think before you argue about guns (are you even a US citizen?)...you need to educate yourself on the terms you are using.

In the US, you can NOT readily buy "assault weapons"...aka fully automatic weapons.

After the 1986 laws (i.e. Hughes amendment), no citizen can own a fully automatic machine gun made prior to 1986. If you do want one, you have to go through a long background check and pay a tax stamp....and you also better have lots of $$$ if you want to buy one of the limited supply of them left from collectors.

I think a decent one starts about $30K?

If you are referring to the common AR-15, it is not truly an assault weapon, as that it is only a semi-automatic rifle, nothing more. An AR-15 is no more or less deadly than say, a Ruger mini-14 which shoots the same round. The AR-15 just is usually black and looks scarier.

The 556 or 223 rounds an AR shoots commonly, is basically a glorified .22 caliber round.

There are other guns that don't look as 'scary', but do shoot MUCH more powerful rounds, and are just as easily procured.

Everyone is welcome to an opinion, but please be a bit more educated about your terms and what you rant about.

there is little sporting use for pistols that couldn't be replicated without the requirement for an actual projectile, and rifles have legimate hunting purposes, and sporting use for rifles is harder to relipicate

While there are a number of sporting uses for guns, this is NOT the only reason for having them.

Self defense is a strong one, and everyone has the right to defend themselves and their homes.

But the US's founders also wanted the citizens to have weapons, to protect them from tyranny of the government. They had just fought to be free from an oppressive government, and they knew it could happen again here with our own government.

A well armed citizenry is a check against our own government becoming oppressive.

Look at history how many times after a government disarmed its populace, that not long after, it became a dictatorship and there was massive bloodshed.

It happened before, it could easily happen again.

And frankly, if the worst ever happens and the power grid in the US goes down for a prolonged period of time....you'd better be well armed. You'll stand a better chance of surviving.

Re: It's just vandalism

[Tom]

Judging by your response you're German, so your economic policies/politics are already far more "socialist" than a country like the USA.

Actually, after reunification Germany moved fast to become more like the USA and is still moving in that direction. Both Merkel and her predecessor have proudly boasted in public about their contribution to creating a minimum-wage sector in Germany.

You also don't see our local news, I guess. Yes, communists and marxists have always taken to the streets. But lately, say the last 10 or so years, a lot of other people have joined them.

These two are the developments I am talking about.

Right. Protests and riots erupt nearly every time the G20 meets, in whichever country, almost always spearheaded by hard-line communists and anarchists who publicly advocate revolutions, ...

Yes, that is exactly why I said they were predictable and expected. But you forgot that this is my home city. I know almost every corner that you could see in the news reports. I shopped in some of the shops that were plundered. I watched the entire one hour of footage from the first demonstration that escalated. This first escalation was very clearly provoked. Both the location and the behaviour of the police point to that. If you know the street, you know that there is only one spot on it where demonstrators would be boxed in from all sides, and that is exactly where they stopped them.

Also, the guy who was put in charge of the entire police operations during G20 was a known hardliner who has a long history of somehow always being involved in violent clashes.

I have no sympathy for either side. IMHO this is one of those stories where there are no good guys.

But I know the "script". Two years ago, barricades were burning in the street I lived in, not far from where the G20 riots happened. That night, it was clear who the assholes were and when a policemen was hit by a stone right under my window, I called the police and stepped up as a witness. Didn't see much, no face unfortunately, but I hope the caught that fucker (short distance, clearly no self-defense or police provocation, I fucking saw the policeman going down).

G20 was different. I have no evidence to offer except having lived all my life there, and more than 10 years within walking distance of both the first escalation and the later riots. From that background knowledge, and from everything I saw and heard during and after the G20, to me it is crystal clear that both sides planned these riots to happen, these escalations to happen, and were probably surprised by their own success in making them happen.

Re: It's just vandalism

[cayenne8]

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.

Re:It's just vandalism

[ishmaelflood]

The only charity I give money to is the Fred Hollows Foundation. They do free cataract operations in India. I can't see much harm in that unless you are an Indian eye surgeon. It costs about 25 bucks to restore a person's sight.

All this tech

[philmarcracken]

We are busy trying to prevent human collisions with this tech. Seems like they're not ready to give up just yet.

Re:All this tech

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Skin vs Glass

[Nkwe]

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.

Luddites attacking their jobkillers

[nospam007]

News for nerds from the 19th century.

As AI improves

[Lead Butthead]

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...

Re:As AI improves

[slew]

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)

Go for the food delivery robots!

[mspohr]

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.

Re:Go for the food delivery robots!

[Areyoukiddingme]

All it would take would be a crowbar for random people to get access to regular food deliveries.

Free cheeseburger, go to jail for felony vandalism, because those things are festooned with cameras.

Re:Go for the food delivery robots!

[Kjella]

They have to catch you first. They have real criminals to catch first. If you RTFA, you'll see that nobody was arrested for the incidents.

More specifically, it said they didn't call the police in the first place. I guess they're trying to send the message that you're just being a nuisance and we don't care, so there's no point in doing it and maybe avoid a Streisand effect. If that backfires I'm sure they'll call in the police if they take serious damage, widespread damage, have repeat offenders or the service for paying customers is sabotaged. Right now though it seems they're just reporting it to be totally up-front with the regulators about all unwanted contact, not because it matters.

Self driving is fine

[timere969]

They are not beating on it because it is self-driving. They are beating on it because it is a GM.

Re:If you trust them

[GrBear]

Why, is there some reason they can only turn clockwise?

Re:What is the gain?

[arth1]

What do people expect to happen from attacking robots?

That they get heard.

Send a letter, and nobody will read it, and it will certainly not be escalated up to the person you addressed it to. But do a small act of defiance like this, and it hits the news, and those high up will notice that the product doesn't get an universal warm welcome, no matter what their trail of sycophants might have told them.

really poor title and writeup

[meglon]

I mean, seriously biased. The title should be: Freedom Fighters from the Future Engage in Skirmishes with Machines to Push Back Judgement Date.

Does not surprise me a bit

[oldgraybeard]

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 ;)

Obligatory...

[WilliamGeorge]

In Soviet California, pedestrian runs into you!

Re:What is the gain?

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Vandalism on a device with cameras everywhere is unlikely to end the way they want it to in the long run.

What we've got here is failure to communicate.

[swell]

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.

Re:What we've got here is failure to communicate.

[Tablizer]

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...

I invented Deep Flip to automate such communication. It's web-scale. We're currently testing it on dumbshits and dipwads. Next week we'll start on asstards.

Re:What we've got here is failure to communicate.

[iggymanz]

"Reload and lay down some cover fire for me, dear, I'm changing lanes!"

Re: What is the gain?

[nounderscores]

do you remember phoneslapping in the 90s? it was a craze where people would slap mobile phones out of people hands. not many people did it but it got into the news. fortunately nokia had a few resilient phones on the market and the phone slapping didn't stop the technology.

the google glass was fragile and underperforming. that is what killed it. Intel has a better pair of glasses coming. if they're any good, they'll sell so fast you can't punch them all.

Re:What is the gain?

[HangingChad]

What do people expect to happen from attacking robots?

They're not attacking robots, they're attacking all the unfairness they can't control. A crappy boss, a parking ticket, getting laid off, maddening rent increases, car repairs. People have no outlet for accumulated petty insult and take out their frustration on the unblinking machine.

Uh, SF is not CA

[grasshoppa]

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.