Attack on Cruise Robotaxi in San Francisco Filmed by the Passengers
Two scientists from the U.S. and Netherlands researching autonomous vehicles and testing out Cruise Robotaxi and Tesla’s FSD Beta in San Francisco experienced firsthand an attack on their vehicle. While riding in a Cruise through San Francisco at night, the two came to a stop at an intersection where a number of homeless people were loitering. Since the two researchers were filming their ride for their research, the people outside apparently thought they were being filmed and wanted them to stop. They began pelting the Cruise Robotaxi with trash and blocking its sensors.
The Cruise Robotaxi still drove through the intersection when the signals turned green, but then stopped, which allowed the attackers to throw even more trash – in this case, empty boxes – at the windshield and hood. The two researchers remained in the vehicle and notified the Cruise operations center. After a few minutes, a Cruise employee arrived to rescue the two from their predicament. Unfortunately, this happens often, he said.
Attacks on robotaxis are nothing new. In recent months, especially before the California PUC’s pending decision to allow robotaxis in San Francisco without restrictions, there had been a spate of attacks. Among others, a group calling itself Safe Street Rebels had been prominent, placing construction site hats on the hoods of the robotaxis, blocking the sensors. More recently, another recording became public of a masked man destroying the sensors and windshield of a Cruise Robotaxi with a hammer. There were also several incidents in Phoenix, Arizona, where other drivers tried to run the Waymo One robotaxis off the road.
While these vehicles were each without passengers, this is the first known case of an attack on a robotaxi with passengers. And this shows that there is still some work to be done on the behavior of the robotaxi. Because if it comes to such an aggression against Robotaxi, then you as a passenger would like to be driven out of the danger zone by it as quickly as possible and not get stuck right there.
By the way, the irony of the story is also that one of the researchers is doing research on the topic of “resistance against robotaxis”. Now, unfortunately, she had to experience this directly herself. The two researchers were unharmed.
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KREATIVE INTELLIGENZ
Über ChatGPT hat man viel gelesen in der letzten Zeit: die künstliche Intelligenz, die ganze Bücher schreiben kann und der bereits jetzt unterstellt wird, Legionen von Autoren, Textern und Übersetzern arbeitslos zu machen. Und ChatGPT ist nicht allein, die KI-Familie wächst beständig. So malt DALL-E Bilder, Face Generator simuliert Gesichter und MusicLM komponiert Musik. Was erleben wir da? Das Ende der Zivilisation oder den Beginn von etwas völlig Neuem? Zukunftsforscher Dr. Mario Herger ordnet die neuesten Entwicklungen aus dem Silicon Valley ein und zeigt auf, welche teils bahnbrechenden Veränderungen unmittelbar vor der Tür stehen.
This article was also published in German.
