What I learned from 130 hours on a Waymo

This is to me the most fascinating part of the text, as we are increasingly seeing attacks on Waymo cars on social media:

People are gradually figuring out that Waymos are incredibly docile and careful, and are taking advantage of it. I once had someone sit on my Waymo for a few minutes to prevent it from moving. Waymos are programmed to be very cautious and careful drivers. They are completely unable to deal with someone sitting on the car's hood. This means that any person on the street can indefinitely stall a Waymo. This act in and of itself was a minor annoyance, but I think it's a sign of a new behavioral dynamic that will become a lot more prevalent with time.

The reason this behavior doesn't happen with human-piloted cars is that it's too risky for the person on the street doing the interference. A small fraction of human drivers are prone to violence, and if you're a person on the street looking to stir up trouble, you don't know if you're dealing with a driver who is aggressive or frightened enough to wield a 3000 pound car as a weapon against you. Only a fool or a crazy person would attack or even touch a stranger's car while they're driving it.

Or as Paul Crowley tweeted here:

https://x.com/ciphergoth/status/1853479347736490298

We rely on random violent nutcases to deter certain kinds of antisocial behaviour