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Waymo pulls over, calls cops on juvenile riders who had 'ghost gun"

latimes.com

11–20 of 223 posts

Re: Waymo pulls over, calls cops on juvenile riders who had 'ghost gun"

#11
post #8
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a big difference between a human present who can make a decision based on a situation literally in front of their eyes, and a computer flagging a video feed for someone in what amounts to a call center to look at and decide on. Not to mention the mass surveillance this sort of stuff continues to help enable.

I'm not a fan of expanding surveillance but the alternative of unmonitored transit seems worse. Going to shoot up a place? Take your guns on a waymo. It won't complain. Guy wants to take an obviously distressed and co-erced girl to an abandoned lot? No complaints. Person with obvious head injury and slurring speech wants to go home instead of the hospital? Sure. Person has heart attack and passes out in back? We'll j…

That's a good yardstick. Would a reasonable human driver call (or want to call) the cops? If yes, it's reasonable for Waymo to do the same

Re: Waymo pulls over, calls cops on juvenile riders who had 'ghost gun"

#12
post #3

I'm really torn on this. This particular situation, at face value at least, sounds like a good outcome. Kids had a gun, someone noticed, called police, situation handled without escalation or violence or something tragic happening. But this doesn't generalize. Another incident described in the article was when some kids were drinking in the car and shooting toy guns. What if they hadn't been drinking? What if they we…

Would you do any of those things in a regular taxi or subway car?

Imagine the alternative headline saying the murderers used Waymo for their drive-by assassination. There is only one option for Waymo here, and the idiocy of the US police is not within their power to solve.

Re: Waymo pulls over, calls cops on juvenile riders who had 'ghost gun"

#13
post #8
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a big difference between a human present who can make a decision based on a situation literally in front of their eyes, and a computer flagging a video feed for someone in what amounts to a call center to look at and decide on. Not to mention the mass surveillance this sort of stuff continues to help enable.

I'm not a fan of expanding surveillance but the alternative of unmonitored transit seems worse. Going to shoot up a place? Take your guns on a waymo. It won't complain. Guy wants to take an obviously distressed and co-erced girl to an abandoned lot? No complaints. Person with obvious head injury and slurring speech wants to go home instead of the hospital? Sure. Person has heart attack and passes out in back? We'll j…

Maybe we shouldn't put the whole burden of world justice on Waymo, this allowing it a complete invasion of the privacy of both the people who use it and those who don't? Guy takes a drugged up girl on the train, should we hold the train responsible for the outcome also?

Re: Waymo pulls over, calls cops on juvenile riders who had 'ghost gun"

#15

Flock is bad, but fleets of cars strapped to the teeth with cameras and sensors are suddenly ok even when they call the police on you? Why? Because of the makers of the technology that powers the cars say they are safer (via datasets that we have no way to validate)?

I think there's a legitimate distinction between monitoring what's inside the car vs what's outside. Outside seems bad. Inside is probably necessary.

Re: Waymo pulls over, calls cops on juvenile riders who had 'ghost gun"

#17
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a fan of expanding surveillance but the alternative of unmonitored transit seems worse. Going to shoot up a place? Take your guns on a waymo. It won't complain. Guy wants to take an obviously distressed and co-erced girl to an abandoned lot? No complaints. Person with obvious head injury and slurring speech wants to go home instead of the hospital? Sure. Person has heart attack and passes out in back? We'll j…

Maybe we shouldn't put the whole burden of world justice on Waymo, this allowing it a complete invasion of the privacy of both the people who use it and those who don't? Guy takes a drugged up girl on the train, should we hold the train responsible for the outcome also?

I think the risks are different on a train, which is far more public than the inside of a taxi. There are more likely to be other people and/or an operator to intervene.

Re: Waymo pulls over, calls cops on juvenile riders who had 'ghost gun"

#18
post #15

Flock is bad, but fleets of cars strapped to the teeth with cameras and sensors are suddenly ok even when they call the police on you? Why? Because of the makers of the technology that powers the cars say they are safer (via datasets that we have no way to validate)?

I think there's a legitimate distinction between monitoring what's inside the car vs what's outside. Outside seems bad. Inside is probably necessary.

This is a good distinction. My main concern with Waymo is that we have no way of knowing if they stick/will stick to only monitoring the inside.

Re: Waymo pulls over, calls cops on juvenile riders who had 'ghost gun"

#19

Flock is bad, but fleets of cars strapped to the teeth with cameras and sensors are suddenly ok even when they call the police on you? Why? Because of the makers of the technology that powers the cars say they are safer (via datasets that we have no way to validate)?

Well for one, so far they've only called the police on people who chose to use the service.

When we have evidence that Waymo is contracting its external cameras out to local governments and allowing abuse, then we can criticize them for it.

Re: Waymo pulls over, calls cops on juvenile riders who had 'ghost gun"

#20
I dunno. This doesn’t bother me in the same way that flock cameras do. A Waymo car is a private space that you don’t have to use if you don’t want to. Seems pretty reasonable to me that Waymo doesn’t want their cars used for drive by shootings. If a drive by were to happen in a Waymo, this would be compelled by law anyway.
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