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SF Fire Dept.: Person Dies After Cruise Robotaxi Blocked Ambulance

sfstandard.com

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Re: SF Fire Dept.: Person Dies After Cruise Robotaxi Blocked Ambulance

#111

Post by halfcat »

falcolas wrote: post #89
gkoberger wrote: post #56

This is such a weird framing. The person (a pedestrian) died because a car driven by a human hit them. There was also a human-driven police car that was also blocking the ambulance. I don't think the Cruise made this situation better, but it was a human-driven car that caused the death. And as far as I could find, Cruise has never hit a human.

If you shoot a gun out your window and kill someone who jumped off the building, you are still on the hook for manslaughter. That is to say, Cruise is still on the hook, even if they didn’t hit the pedestrian in the first place.

What if a brand new, human-driven taxi breaks down, blocking the ambulance? Is the taxi company on the hook?

Re: SF Fire Dept.: Person Dies After Cruise Robotaxi Blocked Ambulance

#112

Post by dehrmann »

spondylosaurus wrote: post #91
gkoberger wrote: post #56

This is such a weird framing. The person (a pedestrian) died because a car driven by a human hit them. There was also a human-driven police car that was also blocking the ambulance. I don't think the Cruise made this situation better, but it was a human-driven car that caused the death. And as far as I could find, Cruise has never hit a human.

Nah, the reason someone needed an ambulance is totally immaterial here. A person had life-threatening injuries, and Cruise prevented that person from receiving critical treatment. Counterfactually, that person would most likely be alive if the Cruise taxi hadn't been on the street that day.

> Counterfactually, that person would most likely be alive if the Cruise taxi hadn't been on the street that day.

That's a big statement. It sounds like it delayed the ambulance up to 90 seconds. 90 seconds can make a difference, but the patient died "later," and from pretty severe injuries.

Re: SF Fire Dept.: Person Dies After Cruise Robotaxi Blocked Ambulance

#113

Post by spondylosaurus »

slg wrote: post #110
spondylosaurus wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are no longer assigning blame for a real incident. You are theorizing about the potential damage that AI drivers can cause in similar situations. I am! Because I think that's a useful thing to do. > But once you do that, you also have to consider the tradeoffs between human and AI drivers and all the deaths that human drivers cause. Also yes—and one factor right now is that we have a robust EMS system designed…

If you are talking about these in general terms about a hypothetical future, I don't think one example of medical care being delayed is very strong data compared to the 42,939 motor vehicle deaths the IIHS reported in 2021. >(But also, counterfactually speaking, it is absolutely the robotaxi's fault that the person died. Had the ambulance been unhindered, they would have had a chance at life after receiving proper me…

But they were hit by a human driver. 42,939 people were struck and killed by human drivers. So in these present circumstances, delaying ambulance care (which is the immediate, not-hypothetical question here) is inexcusable.

Re: SF Fire Dept.: Person Dies After Cruise Robotaxi Blocked Ambulance

#114

Post by halfcat »

zootboy wrote: post #13
coding123 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Title says after not because...

That feels like trying to get by on a technicality. The casual reader would reasonably interpret "after" to imply some causation the way this headline is written.

Yes. Financial articles do the same with “as”.

“Tech stocks down as trade talks stall with China”

They’re rarely related. Two things happened, and they put “as” between them.

Re: SF Fire Dept.: Person Dies After Cruise Robotaxi Blocked Ambulance

#115

Post by jinkiesScoob »

gkoberger wrote: post #100
spondylosaurus wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, the reason someone needed an ambulance is totally immaterial here. A person had life-threatening injuries, and Cruise prevented that person from receiving critical treatment. Counterfactually, that person would most likely be alive if the Cruise taxi hadn't been on the street that day.

What makes you believe this? According to the videos, there were multiple ambulances on the scene and the injured person was on their way to the hospital within 90 seconds. It’s very likely both are true: Cruise made things more difficult, but didn’t cause enough of an issue to materially change the outcome. Source: https://sfstandard.com/2023/09/01/person-dies-cruise-robotax...

Unbelieveable that you buy that. If Cruise wants to clear this up they can post the video. I'm gonna believe the first responders here who do this for a living over a corporate PR mouthpiece.

That journalist could have signed a non disparagement contract to see the video or just been paid off. Cruise has the video, there is no body. Post it. Anything else is bullshit.

Re: SF Fire Dept.: Person Dies After Cruise Robotaxi Blocked Ambulance

#116

Post by jinkiesScoob »

phpisthebest wrote: post #65
annexrichmond wrote: post #41

We can argue all day about whether Cruise was in the wrong here, but the fact is, with autonomous cars becoming more common, this kind of situation is going to happen - an autonomous car blocking a vehicle in an emergency - and protocols/regulations need to be in place for handling these situations.

Like with most things autonomous cars my question would be what is the over/under on how autonomous cars compare to the human population because I see Human drivers blocking emergency vehicles all the time... So the question is not, imo, if autonomous cars will be perfect, all the time. But if they are better than human drivers.

How about instead of thinking about it from a statistical perspective we think of it from a liability one. A human driver has direct liability for the motor vehicle they operate. Meanwhile Cruise is a social construct literally designed to avoid liability.

If a human kills someone accidentally they are almost certain to apologize and be obviously distraught. Cruise will deny everything, never apologize. While that is technically valueless by your metric, in the real world that has a lot of intangible value for those involved.

Re: SF Fire Dept.: Person Dies After Cruise Robotaxi Blocked Ambulance

#117

Post by jancsika »

perihelions wrote: post #62

- "blocked a San Francisco ambulance from getting a pedestrian hit by a vehicle" I'm taking no "position" on either "side" of the debate, but I feel it's noteworthy that a *human-driven* car killed a pedestrian (seriously?) here, and that fact is utterly banal and completely unremarkable to the authors—and to us. AI cars are still highly flawed and kill people. Human-driven cars are highly flawed, probably more flawe…

This is the thing I keep trying to remind people about when people complain about how much energy Bitcoin uses. Just think about how much energy is used by the U.S. government to maintain fiat.

It's wild that people want to focus the problems of completely unproven new technology whose adherents are betting on it taking over.

Re: SF Fire Dept.: Person Dies After Cruise Robotaxi Blocked Ambulance

#118

Post by nickthegreek »

phpisthebest wrote: post #65
annexrichmond wrote: post #41

We can argue all day about whether Cruise was in the wrong here, but the fact is, with autonomous cars becoming more common, this kind of situation is going to happen - an autonomous car blocking a vehicle in an emergency - and protocols/regulations need to be in place for handling these situations.

Like with most things autonomous cars my question would be what is the over/under on how autonomous cars compare to the human population because I see Human drivers blocking emergency vehicles all the time... So the question is not, imo, if autonomous cars will be perfect, all the time. But if they are better than human drivers.

A human can be held accountable. When another vehicle causes harm to a person, I want accountability. When things go wrong, and they will, who is being held liable. The answer cannot be no one.

Re: SF Fire Dept.: Person Dies After Cruise Robotaxi Blocked Ambulance

#119

Post by pseudo0 »

joshribakoff wrote: post #76
pests wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was taught to allow the ambulance to manuever and do what it needs to do. It will drive the wrong direction down a road, hop onto curbs, drive on sidewalks, etc. They have trainining and experience in this type of driving. It sounds like moving to the other lane would have just blocked another ambulance. What is the procedure here?

What part of “pull over to the right” is hard to understand or ambiguous for you? Thats my understanding of the law.

That's how it is supposed to work in theory, in reality emergency vehicles will use whatever lane has open space. If that happens to be the middle lane or right lane, or sometimes even the shoulder, they will go there.

Eg. Let's say you have a three lane highway with a block of cars cruising in the middle lane and one car slowly passing in the left lane, with the right lane clear. An emergency vehicle rapidly approaching sees this and moves to the clear right lane. Technically you are supposed to move right to allow them to pass on the left, but they are already passing on the right, so moving over would impede them.

Re: SF Fire Dept.: Person Dies After Cruise Robotaxi Blocked Ambulance

#120

Post by statop »

phpisthebest wrote: post #63
statop wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok so the guys and gals who we pay to save your life are saying they're getting in the way. But MLRoboCorporation(TM)(c)(r) says fuck those guys, they can go around? I think I'll side with the humans on this one, let them take control of the vehicle. I don't care how much money Kyle Vogt loses to car theft, that's not my problem. Clearly this industry needs to get regulated hard.

So you will just always defer to public safety officials for everything they want and desire in the name of that safety? That seems like it would be bad idea

This is a strawman, try again.
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