① San Francisco experienced a major power outage last weekend, with numerous Waymo self-driving cars stuck in traffic, becoming a striking sight; ② Due to the traffic chaos caused by the breakdown of self-driving cars, Waymo temporarily suspended operations throughout the city; ③ Meanwhile, Musk stated on social media that Tesla , relying on its Full Self-Driving (FSD) system... The car was unaffected.
Over the past weekend, San Francisco, known as the "AI capital" of the United States, experienced a rare and massive power outage. As the city plunged into darkness, an extreme test of Robotaxi technology immediately unfolded.
In conclusion, Waymo, Google's self-driving car brand, has once again become the focus of negative attention: numerous Waymo vehicles with their hazard lights on are stopped at intersections where traffic lights are off, obstructing traffic . Social media is flooded with images of Waymo vehicles stuck at intersections, and even in the middle of the road.
As a result, tow truck drivers had to work through the night to retrieve disabled self-driving vehicles, and Waymo had to temporarily suspend its self-driving ride-hailing service in San Francisco.
This bizarre scenario has once again raised concerns about the reliability of self-driving cars.
Matthew Vanceley, a professor at Cardozo College of Law in New York and former chief legal counsel for the self-driving startup nuTonomy, explained: " This technology is designed to function properly in the event of communication delays or interruptions and should not rely on instant communication links. "
Wansley speculated that Waymo's massive traffic jams might be related to the remote assistance technology used in its self-driving cars, and that the importance of remote workers to the operation of self-driving vehicles may be far greater than outsiders realize .
According to the company's website, when a vehicle encounters "special interactions," it will contact a human responder, providing them with live and recorded footage from the cameras, as well as sensor data . The captured 3D map. Undoubtedly, these vehicles might not have the network bandwidth needed for remote connections during a major power outage. At the same time, Waymo staff might not be able to handle simultaneous remote assistance requests from vehicles across the city.
Waymo, owned by Google's parent company Alphabet, entered San Francisco in 2023 and currently operates approximately 800-1000 self-driving cars in the city.
In a statement regarding the large-scale outage last weekend, Waymo said that although its vehicles are designed to treat malfunctioning traffic lights as four-way stop intersections, the scale of the outage meant that in some cases, vehicles had to stay at the affected intersections for significantly longer than usual to confirm their status . This further exacerbated traffic congestion during peak hours.
Regarding the San Francisco traffic congestion, a researcher at the MIT Center for Transportation Research, and a contributor to "How to Make Artificial Intelligence..." Brian Remo, co-author of "Becoming Useful," commented that cities are not yet ready to flood the streets with highly automated vehicles . Remo said, "There are overlooked aspects in the design and development of this technology, which clearly shows that it is not the kind of robust solution many people are willing to believe in."
Remer further pointed out that power outages are entirely foreseeable events. Therefore, in the foreseeable future, industry will still need to combine human ingenuity with... The combination of machine intelligence and in highly automated systems (including robots) Establish a manual backup system around taxis.
With its competitors faltering, Tesla , which had just entered the San Francisco Robotaxi market a few months earlier, naturally didn't miss the opportunity to promote itself.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted on social media that Tesla Robotaxi was not affected by the power outage in San Francisco .
It is reported that Tesla vehicles powered by the FSD system operated normally during the San Francisco blackout. However, it should be noted that Tesla Robotaxis still require a human safety driver on board as they have not yet obtained local regulatory approval.
(Article source: CLS)
