12 ms·

The video is wild - Waymo support apparently struggles to remotely control the car.

likeabatterycar 2y ago
Realistically, how much can she do from a cubicle in the Philippines? Maybe driverless cars should have remained a relic of 80s Schwarzenegger movies.
spuz 2y ago
I guess the only option they have is "pull over" which in this case just caused the car to continue circling looking for a safe place to pull over. If they had an actual kill switch, we'd probably be watching another video of some guy on a call to waymo support while stuck in the middle of a highway.
- likeabatterycar 2y ago
  > If they had an actual kill switch I'm unfamiliar - we have these in train cars, did the architects behind driverless techshit not think it was necessary?
  - Waterluvian 2y ago
    Train cars? As in the vehicle on a track where an immediate stop is almost never more dangerous?
    - likeabatterycar 2y ago
      I didn't say pull the hand brake at 60mph. There should be an emergency "pull over and stop gracefully" button.
      - amclennon 2y ago
        They do. I'm guessing there was a bug in finding a place to safely pull over?
        Terr_ 2y ago
        Sounds likely, in which case there needs to be a much more "break glass in case of emergency" control which gradually lowers the maximum speed cap of the vehicle. So even if the vision/pathfinding believes there is nowhere to park and nowhere else to turn, it will still coast to a stop in a way that is not inherently less-safe than a more-normal car running out of gas and stalling on the road.
    - troad 2y ago
      Yes, in much of the world there are mandatory passenger-facing emergency break levers in every carriage of passenger trains. The US is the outlier here. And yes, passengers should absolutely be able to bring their vehicle to an immediate stop. It's an "emergency break"! Of course you need an emergency break in an autonomous car! What exact alternative are you proposing for when you're in an AI-operated car hurtling under the chassis of a white truck that it failed to detect in snow conditions? It seems like an incredibly obvious and basic legislative requirement for self-driving cars to have some kind of immediate manual break for emergencies. I'm kind of shocked that that apparently isn't the case now?
  - throwawee 2y ago
    If they can remotely kill the engine of any Waymo car in motion, so can hackers.
    - likeabatterycar 2y ago
      If they can't secure it, then the entire project should be scrapped. But GM already has this capability with OnStar. Stolen vehicles can be slowed down then stopped and and disabled remotely.
  - spuz 2y ago
    To be clear, I'm talking specifically about the first line of support at Waymo here. I am not precluding that they have higher levels of control behind layers of authorisation.
blibble 2y ago
these things need to have a giant E-STOP button accessible to the passengers otherwise they should simply be banned
- moralestapia 2y ago
  I expressed this exact same concern a couple months ago (and was downvoted, a common theme w/ Google fanbois nowadays): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42117343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42117343 From @simonw back then, >Yes, there's a "pullover now" button on the dashboard at all times. Well, doesn't seem to be the case here.
  - Aloisius 2y ago
    The pull over button is in fact on the screen. According to his spokesperson, he wasn't aware of it.
    - fragmede 2y ago
      the button is giant and blue and impossible to miss and you can see from the video it isn't on the screen. the screen in the video is mostly brown with a sliver of blue on the side.
- lyime 2y ago
  Absolutely not. While that might sound like a safety feature it can also be extremely unsafe. Imagine letting a passenger in a car use the e-brake at any time. It's a tricky problem.
  - troad 2y ago
    > Imagine letting a passenger in a car use the e-brake at any time. Alright, I'm imagining. Seems extremely sensible, especially in an AI-operated vehicle. Much of the world (the US being an outlier) puts passenger-facing emergency breaks in every carriage of passenger trains.
  - 2y ago

Realistically, how much can she do from a cubicle in the Philippines? Maybe driverless cars should have remained a relic of 80s Schwarzenegger movies.

spuz 2y ago

I guess the only option they have is "pull over" which in this case just caused the car to continue circling looking for a safe place to pull over. If they had an actual kill switch, we'd probably be watching another video of some guy on a call to waymo support while stuck in the middle of a highway.

likeabatterycar 2y ago
> If they had an actual kill switch I'm unfamiliar - we have these in train cars, did the architects behind driverless techshit not think it was necessary?
- Waterluvian 2y ago
  Train cars? As in the vehicle on a track where an immediate stop is almost never more dangerous?
  - likeabatterycar 2y ago
    I didn't say pull the hand brake at 60mph. There should be an emergency "pull over and stop gracefully" button.
    - amclennon 2y ago
      They do. I'm guessing there was a bug in finding a place to safely pull over?
      - Terr_ 2y ago
        Sounds likely, in which case there needs to be a much more "break glass in case of emergency" control which gradually lowers the maximum speed cap of the vehicle. So even if the vision/pathfinding believes there is nowhere to park and nowhere else to turn, it will still coast to a stop in a way that is not inherently less-safe than a more-normal car running out of gas and stalling on the road.
  - troad 2y ago
    Yes, in much of the world there are mandatory passenger-facing emergency break levers in every carriage of passenger trains. The US is the outlier here. And yes, passengers should absolutely be able to bring their vehicle to an immediate stop. It's an "emergency break"! Of course you need an emergency break in an autonomous car! What exact alternative are you proposing for when you're in an AI-operated car hurtling under the chassis of a white truck that it failed to detect in snow conditions? It seems like an incredibly obvious and basic legislative requirement for self-driving cars to have some kind of immediate manual break for emergencies. I'm kind of shocked that that apparently isn't the case now?
- throwawee 2y ago
  If they can remotely kill the engine of any Waymo car in motion, so can hackers.
  - likeabatterycar 2y ago
    If they can't secure it, then the entire project should be scrapped. But GM already has this capability with OnStar. Stolen vehicles can be slowed down then stopped and and disabled remotely.
- spuz 2y ago
  To be clear, I'm talking specifically about the first line of support at Waymo here. I am not precluding that they have higher levels of control behind layers of authorisation.

blibble 2y ago

these things need to have a giant E-STOP button accessible to the passengers otherwise they should simply be banned

moralestapia 2y ago
I expressed this exact same concern a couple months ago (and was downvoted, a common theme w/ Google fanbois nowadays): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42117343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42117343 From @simonw back then, >Yes, there's a "pullover now" button on the dashboard at all times. Well, doesn't seem to be the case here.
- Aloisius 2y ago
  The pull over button is in fact on the screen. According to his spokesperson, he wasn't aware of it.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    the button is giant and blue and impossible to miss and you can see from the video it isn't on the screen. the screen in the video is mostly brown with a sliver of blue on the side.
lyime 2y ago
Absolutely not. While that might sound like a safety feature it can also be extremely unsafe. Imagine letting a passenger in a car use the e-brake at any time. It's a tricky problem.
- troad 2y ago
  > Imagine letting a passenger in a car use the e-brake at any time. Alright, I'm imagining. Seems extremely sensible, especially in an AI-operated vehicle. Much of the world (the US being an outlier) puts passenger-facing emergency breaks in every carriage of passenger trains.
- 2y ago