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Move Fast and Break Nothing | Waymo’s robotaxis are probably safer than ChatGPT.

⁨151⁩ ⁨likes⁩

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨silence7@slrpnk.net⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2025/10/is-waymo-safe/684432/?gift=3Y4Wm6FLag4W_JUgMlig-1PTuPNOiKWgiB7mSoIfW4o

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Comments

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  • Kissaki@feddit.org ⁨25⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

    or seemingly an act of God. (In one case, a pickup truck being towed in front of a Waymo came loose and smashed into the vehicle.)

    Baffling to see god mentioned as a possible cause.

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  • melfie@lemy.lol ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I believe Waymo’s strategy has always been to shoot for level 5 autonomous driving and not bother with the others. Tesla not following that strategy has proven them correct.

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    • JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz ⁨58⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

      From what I’ve seen, most issues with Waymo are that they are too careful, too rigid with laws and too easy to fool with things like traffic cones and lines of spray paint. Meanwhile Teslas speed past school buses mowing down children and crash in to walls and parked cars at highway speeds.

      Imma take my chances with the car stuck in the middle of the road because someone plopped a traffic cone on the hood, thank you very much.

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    • SulaymanF@lemmy.world ⁨34⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

      Waymo is currently level 4 autonomous driving. The difference between levels 4 and 5 is that level 4 is geofenced and level 5 is not. (And level 5 has no steering controls).

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  • Sanctus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    But they didnt move fast at all. I saw people driving Waymo’a for years before I saw the first automated one hit the streets. They took their damn time which I am sure was expensive and worth it.

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  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    And a orange safer than a knive.

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  • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    LIDAR, baby!

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    • QuinnyCoded@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      lidar Deez nuts

      gottem

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  • Maeve@kbin.earth ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    They're mobile spyware belonging to an alphabet agency.

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  • andrewrgross@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    This article is a little light on thesis, but legit.

    Personally, I’d like to tie a vision of autonomous vehicles to a broad rethinking of transit and public ownership. What if training data was shared, so instead of allowing Google to create another monopoly we deliberately cultivated a diverse market? What if we designed roads to accommodate autonomous van pools and also bikes and more light vehicles?

    We can dream better than this.

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    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I for one believe we’re capable of building trains

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    • Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      autonomous van pools

      We could even call them busses

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      • andrewrgross@slrpnk.net ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        I love buses too, but a van pool is materially different. Buses travel fixed routes. A van pool can act as a shared taxi that shuttles people directly between points of immediate departure, transit stations, and final destinations.

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    • glimse@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Years ago, Microsoft was doing some R&D on autonomous vehicles in a mock city built for it. Instead of each vehicle doing all of the processing, the fake city was built with wireless markers to GIVE the car the information. Like instead of having to “see” a stop sign, the stop sign told cars it was there.

      It would be complicated and expensive to implement on a mass scale but I thought it was a really cool idea.

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      • FatCrab@slrpnk.net ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Effectively, this has been an ongoing initiative across DoTs for a long while now. The issue is that it’s a hodgepodge approach baked piecemeal into various grants and other programs. But, yeah, digital, vendor agnostic, secure transit infrastructure is always on a lot of DOT folks’ minds.

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      • altkey@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        That test sounds like a model trainroad but for billionaires.

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  • wewbull@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Safer than ChatGPT you say? Wow…

    That isn’t a high bar.

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  • beemikeoak@lemmynsfw.com ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Except for people just walking around getting irradiated at a high enough level to provide feedback for the taxi’s radar. I assume people will start getting cancer… The cancer levels might be funny like 98% on people’s left side or maybe only on people who walk on the sunny or shaded side of busy streets.

    I’d give it a few years for the cancers to start showing up.

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    • suigenerix@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      The sustained dose from a class 1 lidar is well below critical safety levels. You’re no more likely to get cancer from car lidar than you are from regular use of household LED lights. But sure, let’s just add lidar to the long list of things that people will irrationally scaremonger about.

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    • bobbiguy2122@lemmynsfw.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      They’re using lidar not radar, it doesn’t cause cancer, but prolonged exposure can damage your eyes because it’s basically just blasting IR rays 24/7

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    • silence7@slrpnk.net ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Here’s the thing: wavelengths shorter than visible light cause cancer. Wavelengths longer…don’t. They’re using the long wavelengths.

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      • beemikeoak@lemmynsfw.com ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Not exactly how that works. But go ahead.

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  • umbrella@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    yea right. time will tell.

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    • silence7@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      There is a very large safety difference between Waymo and Tesla robotaxis right now.

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      • umbrella@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        teslas looked safe for a while though. imma take my time.

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  • sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Move fast, break laws, escape repercussions.

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    • WanderingThoughts@europe.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      These days they call it “disrupting the market”. Same thing really.

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      • zipzoopaboop@lemmynsfw.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        10x!!!

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  • _cryptagion@anarchist.nexus ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Yeah but they didn’t move fast. autonomous road vehicles have been in development by one company or another for what, twenty years at least? It’s only in the last couple of years that they’ve started hitting the road.

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    • suigenerix@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Yep, the DARPA Grand Challenge of 2004 spurred the modern self-driving car era. But attempts at self driving cars were made as early as the 70s - earlier, depending on how you define autonomous driving. And Waymo has had driveless cars on roads since 2017.

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  • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    That probably is not so comforting when one of them is in control of half a ton of metal, plastic and glass in public.

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