The buzzword of the decade has become AI. It’s virtually everywhere—from mainstream news stations to casual chats. About 10 years ago, a Google-owned company called “Waymo” began slapping AI into…cars?
Do we really think that’s a good idea?
Well, you be the judge. Today in the newsroom, we’re going to be exploring the most humorous Waymo incidents in the news.
Our first instance takes place in Atlanta…when simple Waymo hubbub turned into a ghost circus. Around 6 in the morning, a quiet neighborhood in Atlanta was paraded with AI car-slop; over 50 empty Waymo taxis effectively got themselves trapped in a cul-de-sac. How? It wasn’t on other cars. No, it was on the hyped-up, driverless duds themselves.
They could communicate together to unjam it, right?
Nah.
According to the New York Post, the Waymos clogged up the Buckhead area for hours. And Google’s former motto was, “don’t be evil.” How’s that workin’ out for you, Google?
Waymo specialists said that it was due to a route glitch, making them continuously loop in one spot. A minor “traffic-calming” feature caused the vehicles to become confused and continuously route the vehicles to the same dead-end street.
In other news, Riley Walz, a California software engineer and tech prankster, guided Waymos down a single street in San Francisco. The chosen road was uniquely targeted because it was known as “San Francisco’s longest dead-end street.” At dusk, Walz gathered 50 individual participants to request 50 Waymos all to this same spot, creating the world’s first “AI traffic jam.” Surprisingly, after 10 minutes of idle waiting, the cars efficiently backed out and departed. All 50 requesters were charged $5 as a no-show fee.
Waymos and dead-ends hate each other, don’t they?
Also in California, Waymos were heard honking at each other at odd hours of the night. The sound was waking neighbors and causing chaos, according to CBS News.
The root of the issue was traced to a software update Waymo introduced. The built-in safety feature was designed to reduce low-speed collisions by honking when other vehicles got too close. It was great in theory, but at staging and charging lots in cities like Austin and San Francisco, a major flaw became apparent; in a confined parking lot, it caused a comical but disruptive loop of honking.
Waymo deployed more software updates to resolve the ruckus.
Here are a few more short stories concerning Waymos:
Considering all this, I’m not trying to beat up on Waymo. It just might be fun to look back and say, “remember when our cars were that bad??” someday.
In fact, over the 200 million autonomous miles driver with a fleet of around 3,871 vehicles, Waymo has had zero fatal crashes and 92% fewer crashes involving serious injuries compared to human benchmarks.
That’s pretty remarkable.
What do you think about Waymo? Let me know in the comments!