When I took a Waymo in California, it was a nearly perfect experience. The one exception was when a person in front of me stopped and tried to parallel park on the right side of the road. The Waymo wasn't giving them enough space, sort of inching forward as they attempted to back in. I felt bad - I could see as we passed that the car had stressed them out. I still think Waymos are good overall, but it kind of surprised me it didn't know how to handle this situation.
What's terrifying is it could've just as easily been a child that was playing and trying to retrieve a ball, thinking the car's parked because there's no driver.
If you watch the video, the cat is unfortunate, but not particularly concerning. It was night time, and the cat ran underneath the car from the sidewalk. It's very unlikely that a human would do any better (though, I'd welcome Waymo adding more sensors to the undercarriage to prevent this in the future).
What is concerning is that a woman went up to the Waymo to try to get the cat, backed away a foot or two, and then the Waymo drove off. That seems dangerous, both for the fact that the woman was so close and also because her crouching down in front of the Waymo indicates that there's something exceptional about the environment so the Waymo should proceed with more caution.
I want to see more autonomous driving news here and everywhere, because I think people are sleeping on it, but this isn't new it's a series of sloppily integrated dark patterns in a trenchcoat.
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