A person jumped on the hood of a Waymo driverless taxi and smashed its windshield in San Francisco’s Chinatown last night around 9PM PT, generating applause before a crowd formed around the car and covered it in spray paint, breaking its windows, and ultimately set it on fire. The fire department arrived minutes later, according to a report in The Autopian, but by then flames had already fully engulfed the car.
At the moment, no outlets seem to have reported a motive for the attack. Waymo representative Sandy Karp told The Verge via email that the fully autonomous car “was not transporting any riders” when it was attacked and fireworks were tossed inside the car, sparking the flames. Public Information Officer Robert Rueca of San Francisco’s police department confirmed in an email to The Verge that police responded at “approximately” 8:50PM PT to find the car already on fire, adding that there were “no reports of injuries.”
A video posted by the FriscoLive415 YouTube channel shows the burnt-out husk of the electric Waymo Jaguar.
I will sympathize with the programmers that that would be an edge case that they might not have had forethought to program a response to. Informal closing of streets isn’t the orderly logic that programming is built upon.
That said, it’s just another example of why public roads are not the place to beta test and develop their products. Get these cars off the streets.
As an aside, my dystopian mind just makes me realize that the path we are on is a handful of corporations controlling transportation. When autonomous vehicles are commonplace, we will be reliant on them for approval on where we get dropped off. Imagine if it wouldn’t take you somewhere for whatever reason a corporation wants to use.