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Waymo, Uber and others are testing self-driving car technology in various regions. Not everyone is happy about it and some are taking matters into their own hands.
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0:00
This is a rough one, Will
0:18
Yeah, there's problems in Arizona. Man, wielding rocks and knives, Arizonans attack self-driving cars
0:26
Did you know that self-driving cars were under attack? No. Neither did I
0:30
But I feel like I'm going to. What appears to be happening, there is a resistance to the self-driving experiments going on specifically in Arizona
0:41
There's like 20 plus incidents of people attacking self-driving Waymo vehicles that are trying to figure out how to get better
0:50
how to improve the AI on those vehicles to be better self-driving cars, essentially
0:55
Chandler police confirming to 12 News there have been 21 attacks on the self-driving cars since they first hit the road back in 2017
1:05
So they're stabbing them. That is an odd thing to do. The incidents including slashed tires, drivers trying to taunt employees and run Waymo cars off the road
1:17
And in some cases, weapons are pointed at the company's safety drivers
1:22
People are also throwing rocks at them, and some are trying to cut them off
1:26
or to break in front of them, trying to screw them up, mess them up
1:30
Now, it sounds crazy, obviously. I don't recommend that anybody do this
1:36
But the individuals, they have a bit of a point, in the sense that this is untested technology Those tests are taking place in their neighborhoods They didn necessarily agree to that They didn sign up for it They didn agree to that And I mean waving a PVC pipe or brandishing a revolver
1:56
which is in the next paragraph, not a great way to deal with the issue
2:01
I just don't feel comfortable with technology. As long as it's relatively safe, you know, the trial period
2:09
yeah, I'd give it a shot. I don't like self-driving. cars personally but nonetheless I am kind of interested in the point because it talks about
2:17
that one case in which that cyclist was hit by I believe it was a self-driving Uber vehicle
2:23
and then there's another statement where apparently a kid playing in a cul-de-sac was almost hit
2:28
there a 10 year old boy it's kind of rough it's like a lot of other things in life though whenever
2:34
this topic comes up of the danger of self-driving vehicles automation automation you get people like
2:40
Elon Musk on Twitter that are saying, hey, if you look at the statistics, what about human beings
2:45
are way worse than the robots driving, they're safer, but everyone gets all fired up when a
2:52
robot's responsible because there are all these questions of ethics and decisions and who's doing
2:57
the programming, who's responsible, what are the rules? I don't know if it's a majority, but at
3:02
least there are some people who are angry enough to physically attack these Waymo vans. Apparently
3:09
Many people feel that this is out of their control and the only way they can fight back
3:14
is through these types of attacks. But it does bring up this hot debate in general
3:21
about the future of automation and AI and how it going to interact and interface with the preexisting systems that are set up that involve humans typically Take for example Uber drivers Obviously Uber is one of these companies that testing self tech
3:40
And the presumption there is that eventually those drivers would be replaced
3:45
by automated versions of themselves. And that this process of testing these styles of vehicles
3:52
that the eventual aim is to eliminate the need for human beings
3:56
to be behind those steering wheels. And so people in Arizona, they might be doing that math and saying
4:02
hey, are we taking part in our own obsolescence here? Are we participating in a process that may eliminate us eventually
4:14
I don't know where I land on the thing. Obviously, it's an interesting topic of conversation
4:19
In a lot of places, technology has eliminated human beings. A recent study found up to 670,000 U.S. jobs were lost to robots between 1990 and 2007
4:31
And that number is likely to go up. As a result, the number of human beings needed to deliver a particular product or service has diminished
4:41
And driving, in particular, a very big employer of individuals in the United States and elsewhere
4:50
It has become the flagship innovation segment for having this conversation. There's another conversation about, like I said, ethics earlier
5:00
If you're responsible for programming these vehicles, you have to in some way decide how that vehicle is going to behave in an emergency scenario
5:08
Right. For example, if there is a pedestrian on the road, do I plow through this pedestrian
5:13
to save the driver or the passenger Or do I veer into this wall which may damage the occupant Who makes that selection Is it the person who designs the software Is it the driver themselves Is it a
5:29
politician? These are tough things to talk about, tough topics. Now, I'm not sure that people
5:35
throwing rocks at cars want to have that conversation exactly, but I think that they
5:39
sense that there's there are philosophical issues yeah with these types of tests taking place in
5:46
their town this is definitely a sign it is i think that there is a variance in how much trust an
5:55
individual has for these various tech companies to take care of their best interests this technology
6:02
appears to be really innovative, really cool and amazing, and has the potential to do
6:09
to make the road safer. Ultimately, to have fewer people, to have fewer people die in car accidents
6:16
which, by the way, is a fairly big figure, and nobody wants that. And I'm sure if there's someone
6:21
that's been affected by that directly, they would love to see a world in which that happens less
6:26
frequently. If you look at airlines, for example, they're all automated, and they're incredibly safe
6:31
because of it. So we rely on automation and artificial intelligence in certain departments
6:38
In something like this, it becomes a step more complicated. I'm going to suggest that people
6:42
stop attacking vehicles. I don't think that's a good move, but it definitely is a discussion
6:48
that we should be having about the future of artificial intelligence in human life
6:54
and how we kind of navigate that
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