Waymo reports teen riders for bad behavior and delivers them to the police

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• Hacker News
• https://archive.ph/yUFqG

  The car sent the San Mateo PD a report that the riders had toy projectile emitters (aka "guns," I suppose) they were using to shoot pellets at passers-by. It pulled into a parking lot until cops arrived. It doesn't report if it locked the riders in.

  I was just thinking I want to try at least one joyride but no, now I'm not even interested in giving them those $20.

  by sameers
• hmmm kidknapped due to a false positive would be a bit of an oops to try and rewind. its bad enough that the cops do it [just try and get them to give you a ride back to where thay took you from, even when they are told to cut you loose]

  it causes real damages when you basically abduct and strand someone.

  these "kids" were shooting orbees out the windows, so mischief on them, but get it wrong once and it could get expensive.

  by rolph
• Even if there was a way to remotely engage child lock, the front doors are still always unlocked from the inside.
  by dlcarrier
• I suspect they weren't locked in and stayed because they didn't know the police were coming to their location.

  Locking people in a car, remotely, as a private company, for "bad behavior", would be a mess.

  by kylecazar
• One time I was settling into a long Waymo ride (about 15 miles through traffic) and it was rolling down a wide urban street where a white English-speaking guy like me is distinctly a minority.

  And I was playing Pat Benatar's "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" with the windows wide open, and waving at other cars, and singing along at the top of my lungs, and eventually, Waymo Support rings in, and the guy goes, "just checking in! Is everything alright there?" and I go "er... yeah" and he goes "OK! thank you bye!"

  So I decided maybe there had been an external complaint, and I should perhaps keep the windows up, and the music down a few notches from now on. Especially as a minority in such a neighborhood like that one.

  by ButlerianJihad
• Ha! I don't think there was an external complaint. I suspect that was the mic/cameras IN the car alerting support because you were loud and they wanted to make sure you were okay. :)
  by Schiendelman
• As Benn Jordan pointed out, imagine what a hacker group or ICE could do with this. Fun times!
  by thatmf
• I'm 99% sure that a human made these decisions after viewing the cameras in the vehicle, not that the Waymo vehicle itself decided to contact the police and park in a parking lot with these kids.

  This honestly seems pretty ideal. In a dangerous situation, the only risk is property damage - there's no driver to threaten!

  by Schiendelman
• Agree. AI is not there yet, but it seems it is coming, and that would be scary. People will one day be in the scenario, where AI judges human behavior, and then decides what type of punishments to dish out based on it.
  by baranul