Hacker News Reader

Comment by dcchambers | Hacker News Reader

From a legal standpoint: do these people need valid drivers licenses?

I think this is a key question. In the May 2024 blog post about "fleet response" it sounds like Waymo has a lawyerly set of rules they follow to distinguish between remote operation and providing guidance to the self-driving system.

  Much like phone-a-friend, when the Waymo vehicle encounters a particular 
  situation on the road, the autonomous driver can reach out to a human fleet 
  response agent for additional information to contextualize its environment. 
  The Waymo Driver does not rely solely on the inputs it receives from the 
  fleet response agent and it is in control of the vehicle at all times.

  [...]

  Fleet response can influence the Waymo Driver's path, whether indirectly 
  through indicating lane closures, explicitly requesting the AV use a 
  particular lane, or, in the most complex scenarios, explicitly proposing a 
  path for the vehicle to consider. The Waymo Driver evaluates the input from 
  fleet response and independently remains in control of driving.

https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response

I’d be curious about situations where latency or outages result in deaths of people who have not signed the waymo TOS.

Has Waymo been responsible, in any material way, for any deaths? To my knowledge they have not. (from a quick search: their cars have been involved in one fatal collision total, where a "SUV rear-ends stopped vehicle behind stopped Waymo at high speed, one passenger in the human-driven car and animal declared dead", a situation in which their car was obviously only peripherally involved)

I have no idea. I never suggested they have already happened, but I am certain that they will.

I'd be curious about situations where human drivers have caused the deaths of people who didn't sign the driver's TOS.

That’s individual vs corporate liability, and ‘best efforts’ when things are being outsourced to a different geographic region is riskier than a locally managed decisions team would be an interesting argument.

If a person from the Philippines comes to the USA, they are allowed to drive on our roads as long as they have a valid license in the Philippines (no international permit required).

I would assume that would apply here too.

But also, they aren't actually driving the car. They are giving hints to the autonomous driver.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com