I certainly think I do my part to point out the issues and hype surrounding automated and semi-automated driving, but I also think its important to be honest and realistic about the issues, because there are many, and we need to take them seriously. If we start making a big deal out of lesser problems we run the risk of drowning out real complaints and issues, and that would be bad. Unfortunately, I think that may be what happened recently with a recent video that went viral about a man “trapped” in a Waymo that was confusedly circling around a parking lot.
The incident happened in December in Arizona as Mike Johns was attempting to go to the Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, and was first posted to the inane workplace bragging/creepy business-dating site LinkedIn. I’m not exactly sure why this ended up on multiple sites just a few days ago, but for whatever reason it really took off, and the fact that it did so leaves me a bit unsettled.
First, you should probably see the video:
Okay, so we have our man sitting there, and yes, it absolutely does appear that his Waymo got confused and is circling that parking l0t, endlessly and fecklessly seeking something it will never find. In that sense, how is that Waymo different than any of us, really? Well, I suppose one way is that we generally don’t have people inside us who need to catch a plane to Los Angeles.
Now, he was definitely in a very confused Waymo car, and he definitely needed to get to the airport, but was he actually trapped? That’s the big hook most of the stories were hyping up:
Also a lot about “nearly” missing his flight, which is another way to say “made his flight on time.” Still, this is definitely a weird situation. But, again, was he actually trapped in that car?
In the video, he gets on a voice call with a Waymo support person, who asks him to go to the “My Trip” portion of the Waymo app, but Johns cuts her off and asks her to stop the car remotely. I suspect she was going to have him click the “Pull Over” button on the app and on the rear-seat screen in the car, which is designed to instruct the car to pull over at the next safe opportunity. You can see it in action here, also in Phoenix:
Even without Johns pushing the button that would have done exactly what he wanted to do, if you watch the end of Johns’ video up there you can see that the remote operator does bring the car to a stop. I really don’t think that Johns was ever actually trapped in that car.
Now, that said, would I have milked a situation like this for all I could had I been the one trapped in a circling Waymo? Hell yeah, I would have! I get it! It’s exciting, it’s fun, and the attention can be useful, but the reporting around all of this has been pretty hyperbolic. This is from a SF Gate story:
“I got a flight to catch. Why is this thing going in a circle? I’m getting dizzy,” Johns said. “It’s circling around a parking lot. I got my seat belt on. I can’t get out of the car. Has this been hacked? What’s going on? I feel like I’m in the movies. Is somebody playing a joke on me?”
The customer service representative told Johns to open his Waymo app and that she would try to pull the car over, but seemed to struggle with getting the vehicle to stop.
Look at that last bit – “seemed to struggle with getting. the vehicle to stop.” Really? How? If you watch the video, Johns asks the Waymo rep to stop the car, and seconds later it comes to a stop. It’s right there at the end of the video. It’s also worth noting that Johns is not still trapped in the car, cold and hungry, and no assistance was needed to extract him. He just got out of the car.
Look, Waymo has had its share of problems, and automated driving vehicles, while impressive, are by no means finished. A Waymo getting confused in a parking lot really isn’t that shocking. Taking a Waymo to the airport is like getting a ride with your stupidest friend, but a very obedient friend. They get confused easily. In the case of the Waymo, this is the inherent problem with any AI system: it’s not really intelligence, and it has no idea why it does anything because it’s a machine that is not aware.
This very likely will not be the last time someone has five minutes of their lives wasted by a confused robotaxi that doesn’t realize it’s doing something objectively stupid. But to report on this like it’s someone trapped helplessly in a robot car that has gone haywire is just bad reporting, and that’s going to bite us all in the ass when real problems with automated vehicles come to light as they get deployed more and more.
Remember when that Cruise robotaxi hit a woman and dragged her under the car? That’s the kind of thing that deserves this level of alarm, not a guy made to do a few laps around a parking lot.
We need to be smart about how we report on these things; I don’t blame Johns, who, as an IT guy working in AI would have lots of reasons to play this up, even just for fun. But media reporting on things like this should know better, and try their best to not turn it into some alarmist nonsense.
I know it’s hard. It’s fun to be alarmist! But this is too important.
How is there not a big-ass red Emergency Stop button on this thing? Open up my app? What happens if my phone dies?!
As someone who works in Phoenix: Fuck these robots
I was in Phoenix this last week and saw these things trundling around Scottsdale……they seemed to work pretty well actually, tho they do look odd with the little volcano on the roof, the warts on the corners and the little ice cream cones with the spinny things in them…..