Reporting by XinZhiyuan
Editor: Good Sleepy Yuan Xie Snailnj
On the night of April Fool's Day, the first incident in history in San Francisco was staged in San Francisco, where the first driverless car was stopped by the police and escaped, and the picture was hilarious.
It's common for police to stop cars, but have you ever seen a taxi stopped by an AI?
In a recent video that exploded, passers-by documented the beginning and end of a nonsensical interaction between San Francisco police and Cruise's Robotaxi.
Although the video does not have a tendon meat macho and a hip-hiped actress, the plot from strange to exciting to helpless, than the dramatic conflict and tension of the 9 "Fast and Furious" scripts combined.
Policeman: Please show your driver's license!
Several San Francisco police officers stopped a taxi without headlights at night — and it turned out...
Wait, how come the driver's seat doesn't even have a personal shadow?
At this face, the police comrades were directly confused.
Only to see him even subconsciously look down to "look" for the driver?
At this time, some onlookers shouted "there is no one inside" and "this is crazy", and the police are only now returning to the taste.
Oh yes, the driver doesn't "fall" under the seat.
Whether there is one or not, let the program go first. The policeman walked over to Robotaxi's window and tried to pull the car door open.
Unexpectedly, however, Robotaxi wouldn't even open the door.
No way, let's go back to your own police car first.
In the picture, the comrade has his hand in his pocket and his face is full of helplessness.
Once again, robotaxi is literally running away!
The police had not yet taken a few steps, and Robotaxi, who was estimated to be a Modified Chevrolet electric van, saw the green light and rushed out with an "electric door".
When the police looked, how did this still run away on its own? Hurry up and get in the car and chase after it.
It is about to stage an AI version of the police car chase scene that has a long history in the United States and is often seen in action movies and helicopter live broadcasts!
AI drivers don't have hormones, but will not also produce chase passion due to speed! Will the AI driver feel like his training data comes from Wendisso's money printing press movie work at this moment!
In front of me, Robotaxi ran calmly, and in the back was a police car driving a siren with a police lamp and siren in a desperate pursuit.
Fortunately, although the Robotaxi drove out, somehow, after driving through the intersection at a short distance at normal speed, it "consciously" stopped on the side of the road opposite the intersection a hundred meters away, and also turned on the emergency double flashing lights.
When San Francisco police — again — chased after an unmanned taxi, passers-by laughed and shouted, "Did I make a mistake?" How can there be such a bird thing?" "What the hell?" "I'm going to finish this good show."
This time, the policeman just now called his partner to get out of the car for the sake of safety.
Probably sensing the "threat", the partner subconsciously felt the baton. I just don't know how this can help in "dealing with" AI.
Finally, Cruise came to a steady stop. Two police officers tried again to pull open robotaxi's car door, failing again.
The confused policeman had to call Cruise and other colleagues for help.
A third police officer then arrived at the scene.
Apparently, he was also curious about what this was like, and stared into the car for almost 20 seconds.
Confused policemen circled around the car, except for the process of copying the identification information of the unmanned vehicle that caused the accident, it was not clear how to continue to deal with this strange thing.
The end of this video can be described as very open.
Comrade police officers stood in front of their police cars and watched Cruise silently; Cruise also stopped there, flashing double-flashing; while onlookers on the outside of the picture were laughing.
It is estimated that these three policemen were all wondering "Ouyang Fengsan asked" at this moment: "Who am I?" Where am I going? What am I doing here?"
The AI driver is differently lonely and cold: "You can see my car, but you can't see my people."
Netizen: This AI driver who runs away, is the "skin color" black or white?
After the incident, some netizens were skeptical about the safety of driverless cars: "The sensors at home all know that the lights should be turned on when it is dark, and for unmanned vehicles that do not know that they need to turn on the lights when it is dark, how confident are people to believe that its AI driver can interpret what the traveler is?" 」
Another netizen joked: the unmanned car escaped, but did not hit anyone, and affirmed the AI driver's driving concentration and the absence of casualties.
Some netizens also said: The police made a series of actions, and the intention expressed was not obvious. It is the police, not the AI, that is not operating safely.
In addition, for social topics unique to the United States, some netizens joked: Does this mean that the use of "black AI" in the future will be more accidentous than "white AI"?
Some netizens used the news that is often used in the United States to satirize: the poor guy can't "shoot" the driver, because there is no driver in the car, a gang!
Cruise response: The problem is not big, no ticket was issued
Just earlier last month, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) issued a license to General Motors to provide self-driving passenger service.
Since then, GM's self-driving subsidiary Cruise has been equipped with safety officers, and its Robotaxi (self-driving taxi) can charge passengers, provide passenger transportation services, and can provide ride-sharing services.
However, cruises still have restrictions on the permits they get: they must have security officers in case they take over, and they are not allowed to operate in foggy and rainy weather conditions. Cruise can offer a speed limit of 30 yards on some roads in San Francisco from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. daily.
And this incident is really too nonsensical, plus it happened on the night of April 1st, and many people are speculating that this is not Cruise's April Fool's Day marketing.
However, the land does not distinguish between things and things, people do not distinguish between black and white, and if commercial marketing is aimed at the police station, it is not a good ending, so it should not be.
More than a week after the "AI escape," Cruise said in its official Twitter response to a media interview that it wasn't really an April Fool's Day spoof, and that Robotaxi did what it should have done when it met law enforcement officers:
The unmanned vehicle followed the police's shouts to stop, and then chose to park in the nearest safe position. A police officer contacted Cruise's staff but did not issue a ticket to the driverless car. We're working closely with the San Francisco Police Department and are looking at how to interact with our unmanned vehicles and provide them with a dedicated phone number so they can make calls in this situation.
Cruise spokesman Aaron Mclear confirmed that San Francisco police did stop the vehicle because Robotaxi didn't turn on its headlights, and said Cruise had solved the problem.
However, why Cruise's unmanned vehicles operate without headlights has not been self-disclosed.
Industry speculation is that it may be that Robotaxi's auto-headlight function is disabled, or that environmental sensors fail to detect the dark surrounding environment.
As for the reason for the "escape", some analysts believe that Cruise's first stop was only because it was waiting for a red light.
After the green light came on, it was supposed to move on, but because the police were already approaching, the distance sensor was triggered. Therefore, the system determines that it cannot start. After the police are away, Cruise may think that the alarm can be lifted, so he continues his "journey".
If that's the case, it's clear that Cruise's driverless AI doesn't understand what it means for a police officer to be close to him.
Some people also speculate that the second pull-over is because the sensor detected the scene of the flashing lights of the police car, and the algorithm or the remote takeover security officer finally interpreted that the scene was abnormal, and then really stopped to play the double flashing lights.
Anyway, it's a bit worrisome. Because Cruise's trial operating license only authorizes its Robotaxi to drive between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., it's clear that it's possible not to drive without headlights during this time.
Given that the GM subsidiary has just received a soft opening permit, it is difficult not to repeat this farce in the future, and it is hoped that it will not become more dangerous.
Although this is not the first time that a driverless car has been stopped, nor is it the first time that a driverless car has suddenly run away on its own: Waymo's Robotaxi also had such a scene in May 2021, this is certainly the first time that an unmanned vehicle has escaped on its own after being stopped by the police.
AI driver traffic violations, can actually be exempt from fines?
As AI begins to take over the role of human delivery, passenger lines, and all other human drivers, it seems only a matter of time before AI drivers begin to clash awkwardly with the police.
A short video shot in Richmond, San Francisco, USA, on April 1 shows what the future might look like.
The location of the incident can be interpreted according to the Chinese character sign in the video of the tea restaurant, which is the intersection of Second Chinatown, Clement Road and 8th Avenue in the Richmond District of San Francisco, which is the location in the upper left corner shown by the satellite map.
The door face looks like this.
Although the interaction between the AI driver and the police is funny, it does raise a serious question: how to determine the legal responsibility for traffic accidents of driverless cars? Could it be that driverless cars pull over as soon as they are cut off?
As mentioned earlier, Cruise's attitude in response to the press release in the official Twitter and response to media interviews is: everything is under control, this is normal, don't worry.
But in fact, the police in the video are far from being able to deal with the unmanned vehicle accident with such an understatement.
In this incident, the police not only had to deal with the AI driver's nerves, but also spent valuable on-site response time to call Cruise's human safety officer to consult how to deal with the matter.
Next, there are legal difficulties. It is true that the AI driver who caused the accident in this incident did not take the ticket, but the human driver in the same situation may not be able to go unpunished so easily.
According to Cruise's multiple explanations, the driverless car is not driving away to evade the police, it is trying to find a safer place to park.
However, if most human drivers use the same reasons to defend, they probably can't easily escape being severely punished by the police, and the lawsuit can't be run.
If the coexistence of AI drivers and human drivers on the road is unavoidable, double legal standards will undoubtedly undermine public trust in police authority and acceptance of new technologies.
The May and September 2021 pilot operations of Waymo Havebotaxi had multiple unusual events in which the nerves started on their own and ran to remote locations on the map, and these precedents are not very optimistic.
Considering such a precedent, Cruise did not give a more detailed explanation of why its own Robotaxi did not turn on the headlights and fled on its own, which made the public very worried about whether Robotaxi was suitable for trial operation.
It is true that the public can now expect driverless vehicles to be everywhere on the road in the future, but society may still be years away from being fully prepared for acceptance.
Because of the lack of technology and the lack of relevant legal frameworks, human beings are really not ready to fully trust AI drivers until these problems are solved.
As pedestrians, the public can only hope that the products of unmanned taxi companies can be more reliable.
Resources:
https://www.instagram.com/tv/Cb1q-vggFn9/
https://futurism.com/the-byte/video-police-pulling-over-self-driving-taxi
https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/10/23019303/heres-what-happens-cops-pull-over-a-driverless-cruise-vehicle-general-motors
https://gizmodo.com/san-francisco-cruise-self-driving-car-police-1848777469