And these foreign crowd workers know the local traffic rules? Maybe they even have regular drivers licenses?
It Turns Out That When Waymos Are Stumped, They Get Intervention From Workers in the Philippines
Submitted 2 weeks ago by return2ozma@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://futurism.com/advanced-transport/waymos-controlled-workers-philippines
Comments
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Perspectivist@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
I think the interventions here are more like: “that’s a trash can someone pushed onto the road - let me help you around it” rather than: “let me drive you all the way to your destination.”
It’s usually not the genuinely hard stuff that stumps AI drivers - it’s the really stupid, obvious things it simply never encountered in its training data before.
Cherry@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Feels like the robot hoovers when they encounter an unexpected poo.
MoffKalast@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Saw this blog post recently about waymo’s sim setup and they really do seem to be generating pretty much everything in existence. The level of generalization on the model they seem to be using is either extremely low or they abort immediately at the earliest sign of low perplexity.
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Hm. Interesting. But that makes them look even mode incapable than I feared.
Chozo@fedia.io 2 weeks ago
This used to be my job. They're not controlling the cars. They're basically completing real-time CAPTCHAs, telling the car whether the cameras see a stop sign, a bicycle, temporary barriers, etc. If the car can't identify an object that could possibly cross its path, it pulls over and stops until an operator can do a sanity-check on whatever the car's confused by. They only need to be able to identify objects on the road, not know the rules of the road.
criticon@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Here’s a short video of someone receiving help. They explain briefly that they provide instructions to the vehicle, they don’t do the actual driving
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This is how it generally behaves, but they are capable of taking direct control in more difficult situations. It’s only very slow maneurvers though, it’s not like they would be driving it down the street.
snooggums@piefed.world 2 weeks ago
That is like the person steering to avoid a collision while cruise control and lane assist are on, it isn’t actually fully autonomous.
deacon@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This would have actually been a great thing to not only acknowledge but promote if they weren’t so caught up in their own hype.
Not that I will ever get into one of those death traps but if you tell the average consumer that any failures in autonomy immediately engage a tele-operator “to keep you moving on your way” they would probably feel better about riding.
I’ve done tele-driving before and it’s remarkably good, even if latency is a concern.
It’s the facade of it all, the need to seem to live up to the hype. It’s going to get more people killed.
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
any failures in autonomy immediately engage a tele-operator
One of the problems is that these “failures in autonomy” could include a failure to engage a tele-operator when one is needed.
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
They just stop moving when that happens. It’s been the cause of many traffic jams.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I work near downtown Austin, where both Waymo and Robotaxi operate.
Waymo cars are some of the best drivers on the road because they actuallyt ested their product, use multiple Lidar sensors instead of just cameras, and have remote driver backups for unusual situations.
Teslas drive like maniacs and will end a ride and tell the driver to get out in the middle of a lane.
nixon@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I’ve ridden in a few Waymo’s before, in SF they can be more dependable or easier to get than other ride options. I never felt like I was ever in danger in one.
Within my handful of experiences with them I’ve never had to use the help button or features to request assistance from a tele-operator but it was clear that they weren’t trying to hide the function from the passengers as the feature was explained and clearly labeled.
A friend who uses them often told me of the one time he needed to ask for assistance when their Waymo was stuck behind a doordash scooter with its hazard lights on that was either delivering or picking up and blocking a turn lane in downtown SF. The Waymo didn’t know what to do to get around it, my friend hit the button for assistance, a voice came over the speakers asking how they could help, my friend explained the situation and the tele-operator drove the car to safely navigate the situation. He said it was probably 1.5-2mins of tota inconvenience with 75% of that time was him wondering if he should hit the help button or not.
I understand a lot of AI implementation, such as Amazon Fresh or other business models have been hiding offshored human assistance within their “AI” features, which I do agree with you is deceitful but my experience with Waymo was not that. They did not hide or obfuscate that function and feature of the service but actively informed the passenger of its existence.
Granted, I haven’t ridden in one for almost a year at this point and I only did so in the SF market so things may have changed since or are different elsewhere.
Also, I can’t say that I follow the news intently about Waymo, I know they have run over a couple cats but I hadn’t heard anything about them killing people. Has that happened?
ToTheGraveMyLove@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Nothing could make me feel better about my vehicle being operated remotely by someone in another country. Granted, nothing could make me feel better about my vehicle being operated by a computer either. I’ll drive my damn self, thank you.
titanicx@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I don’t know I trust these over most of the drivers. Hell I took a lyft last night and on the freeway we were pretty scared with the way the driver was going.
CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Curious what the law is with regard to someone in the Philipines driving a car on US roads without a US driver’s license.
FatVegan@leminal.space 2 weeks ago
With like 200 ping
Doomsider@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
You will ignore the man behind the curtain!
The answer is of course proper regulation. Too bad that is ceasing to exist.
essteeyou@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Maybe the same as tourists driving in the US without US licenses.
Jason2357@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Automation has always been about de-skilling to cheaper, more abuse-able labour, and not about actually eliminating work. This goes all the way back to the broad looms and the luddites. There were still loom workers in the new factories - its just that they were children who could be worked to death for pennies.
Murdoc@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Well, automation under our current system, yes.
CreamyJalapenoSauce@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Artificial artificial intelligence
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Moravy also argued that to stop anybody from taking control of vehicles, the company “actively participates in hacking events
Read this slowly:
Here they admit that their vehicles can be hacked and then remotely cotrolled.
EmilyIsTrans@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
They’re running red team hacking scenarios, an extremely standard, common, and good practice in the cybersecurity industry. Any device, especially one connected to the internet, is at risk of being hacked - it would be naive to assume otherwise, so they’re hiring professionals to penetrate their security before someone else does. This is actually a sign they’re taking security seriously.
Also, from the article: “they do not remotely drive the vehicles”.
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Also, from the article: “they do not remotely drive the vehicles”.
You may quote and repeat this as much as you like… ;-)
Perspectivist@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
If it’s connected to internet it can be hacked.
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
If it’s connected to internet it can be hacked.
Correct, so far.
Only a few years ago it was the usual thing with cars (except Teslas) that their entertainment system was connected to the internet, but everything related to driving was not. Such a thing as hacking and remote driving was fundamentally impossible.
Today, even in the European cars is a whole lot more internet inside. But real remote driving is still not a standard possibility.
Deestan@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
“Your kid is safe at school, because we insist all teachers use condoms”
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
For anyone that is curious, Waymo actually is capable of remote moving the vehicles. They do their best not to admit it’s possible, but it’s right in the CPUC filings as a footnote.
cpuc.ca.gov/…/tcp0038152a-waymo-al-0003_a1b.pdf
In very limited circumstances such as to facilitate movement of the AV out of a freeway lane onto an adjacent shoulder, if possible, our Event Response agents are able to remotely move the Waymo AV under strict parameters, including at a very low speed over a very short distance.
ageedizzle@piefed.ca 2 weeks ago
Waymo really seems to be winning out over Tesla with the self-driving thing. I wonder how much of that is really just because Waymo cars have a remote human driving them in situations where a Tesla would just crap out
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’m not fully up to speed on Waymo or if they have ever released details, but when Cruise went through that shit storm a year or two ago, it came out that that the cars were asking for help every few miles.
Cruise was essentially all smoke and mirrors.
titanicx@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I’m pretty sure with the fact that Tesla can remote control their robots in 90% of circumstances that we have the same effect with Tesla is being remotely driven and they’re just not admitting to it either.
alzjim@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The Mechanical Turk strikes again.
MangoCats@feddit.it 2 weeks ago
Waymo knowing when it is stumped is actually a pretty good thing. Better than just running over cats & small children.
sorghum@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
AI stands for Actually
IndiansFilipinosWanderingThoughts@europe.pub 2 weeks ago
Same for the delivery bots. They’re all getting some remote control help.
kurwa@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It’s all mechanical Turks
sturmblast@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Anyone else not very impressed?
Son_of_Macha@lemmy.cafe 2 weeks ago
Will they admit how much time the humans actually do the controlling.
MrSulu@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Let’s get rid of undocumented workers they said
MoffKalast@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Each worker has a readme now, it’s alright /s
psx_crab@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Don’t forget 200 pages of EULA
merde@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
being “undocumented” or “illegal” is a local bedtime story. It doesn’t apply to people everywhere
Etterra@discuss.online 2 weeks ago
If you keep doing the work for them, they’ll never learn. They need to figure it out for themselves.
THE_GR8_MIKE@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I still have no idea how these are legally able to operate on public roads. Shit seems wild to me. Wouldn’t last 5 seconds here in Chicago, for numerous reasons lol
GalacticSushi@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Well bribery and corruption are illegal only in theory and only if you don’t call it “lobbying.” Google has a lot of money so it really doesn’t matter (to the people making the rules) if these things should be on the road or not.
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Why won’t waymo work in Chicago specifically?
SharkAttak@kbin.melroy.org 2 weeks ago
"Hey clanker, you drove in the wrong city..!"
umbrella@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
this tech is doing great to devalue workers. drivers, this time.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Actually Islanders at it again
ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This is way better than Robo Taxi convoys of 2 chase cars following one driverless vehicle. A fraction of the footprint and manpower cost of Musk’s venture.
bappity@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
the same thing happened with that Amazon shop that you could apparently take anything out without checking out and it would automatically charge your account…
turns out they had workers watching the camera footage
Smaile@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Yay, wireless slave wagies!!
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
AI = Actual International-workers
carrotfox@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
AI = Asians Inside
PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Someone needs to slap an Asians Inside sticker in the same style as the Intel ones.
titanicx@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Oh my god so what you’re saying is that they left out rice and the Asians really did show up!
KyuubiNoKitsune@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
AI =Actually Indians
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I’m also AI
Actually Introverted
jimmy90@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
this is actually a great advert for waymo ai. taking a safety first approach better than humans can and referring to humans when in a situation in which it has no safe option