They were going nuclear on it for one reason.
it drove into the crowd and didn’t recognize the crowd as People.
It was actively trying to drive through them.
Where is that quote from? I didnt see it in the article
This happened during street festivities for lunar new year, so a lot of people are connecting the dots. They don’t mention that the car was aggressively trying to drive through a crowd, but it seems like it was trying to make its way through a crowd.
Multiple witnesses said Waymo’s navigation technology became confused by festivities and fireworks that were lit to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Witness Anirudh Koul said the driverless car “got stuck immediately in front.”
Another witness said the car’s presence in the middle of Chinatown’s celebrations triggered frustrations in the crowd. “You could feel the frustration when people were just trying to celebrate,” she told KRON4.
So the car’s presence was annoying them. That’s not exactly a great justification for torching it.
The car shouldn’t have been present in the first place. It wasn’t a place for cars to be at that moment.
Was the road officially closed?
A funny thing about life is a lot of things happen unofficially, and humans do fine at adjusting to such situations.
Plenty of humans also accidently wander into places they’re officially not allowed to be in, much less unofficially.
Some people are so obsessed with their vehicles that seeing one destroyed feels like a personal attack on their rights. Acting like a bunch of cars don’t kill a bunch of human beings every day regardless of who’s driving them, professing blame belongs solely to the victims for being in the wrong place and time. Then you can see how they act when roles are reversed and the idea pops into their minds that people might destroy their precious cars, instead of the norm where cars destroy human bodies. Americans particularly seem to be completely brainwashed since the reeducation campaigns of the likes of AAA a hundred years ago.
If we actually do self-driving cars right - i.e., with a safety-first approach - we could seriously reduce casualties.
Why wait for a reduction when we can eliminate it right away?
Probably because we can’t reasonably eliminate it right away.
Well I was being glib but I think we have a greater ability than to eliminate cars today than we do to make them safer by self driving. I think we could get it done in like 5 years outside of rural areas if we had everyone on board.
The verge’s article on the same incident went on a tangent about how tech companies have been continously facing issues with these kinds of devices destroyed. Can’t have a ride sharing program if all the bikes, scooters, vehicles are vandalized or destroyed. No way we’re going to rid of personally owned vehicles if the alternatives are continously under attack.
We’re slowly inching towards the butlerian jihad.
“Unexpected item in bagging area.”