I watched a recording of the hearing. It sounds a lot like the Amazon Fresh thing, at a glance, but it's not.
Amazon admitted that they had a bunch of people in India looking at the camera feeds and validating orders post-facto. The media took this as "the Indian workers are processing your Amazon Fresh purchase, not the computers" which is disingenuous at best. And yeah, it sounds like Waymos usually, nearly always are fully autonomous.
The huge, gargantuan, enormous difference is that, in Waymo's case, the overseas folks are taking control of a fucking car. That's not post-facto like the Amazon thing. And, more importantly, the ramifications of even the tiniest mistake are massive by comparison.
Indian Amazon guy screws up? Shoot, I paid for two heads of lettuce when I only got one. Filipino Waymo guy screws up? Car accident.
By the way: Imagine driving a real, actual car with trans-oceanic ping.
So,... isn't it illegal to do that. If someone in the Philippines does not have a CA/AZ/Whatever driver's license - then Waymo is breaking the law. It's probably worse than that.
It also proves that Waymo's capabilities are overstated. I keep getting pushback when I complain about specific situations in this forum about how Waymo thinks about complex situations - and this entire time, it may have been humans navigating them.
Foreigners can drive in California without a California license. But it's important to note that in this situation they're not driving at all (the latency would make that unfeasible). They're there to disambiguate complicated situations and point the car in the right direction.
Try to not let clickbait headlines shape your view of a situation.
I watched a recording of the hearing. It sounds a lot like the Amazon Fresh thing, at a glance, but it's not.
Amazon admitted that they had a bunch of people in India looking at the camera feeds and validating orders post-facto. The media took this as "the Indian workers are processing your Amazon Fresh purchase, not the computers" which is disingenuous at best. And yeah, it sounds like Waymos usually, nearly always are fully autonomous.
The huge, gargantuan, enormous difference is that, in Waymo's case, the overseas folks are taking control of a fucking car. That's not post-facto like the Amazon thing. And, more importantly, the ramifications of even the tiniest mistake are massive by comparison.
Indian Amazon guy screws up? Shoot, I paid for two heads of lettuce when I only got one. Filipino Waymo guy screws up? Car accident.
By the way: Imagine driving a real, actual car with trans-oceanic ping.
The remote assistance (fleet response) team cannot directly control the car:
> The Waymo Driver evaluates the input from fleet response and independently remains in control of driving.
https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response
> taking control of a fucking car
they aren't though, they are clicking waypoints on a map
So,... isn't it illegal to do that. If someone in the Philippines does not have a CA/AZ/Whatever driver's license - then Waymo is breaking the law. It's probably worse than that.
It also proves that Waymo's capabilities are overstated. I keep getting pushback when I complain about specific situations in this forum about how Waymo thinks about complex situations - and this entire time, it may have been humans navigating them.
Foreigners can drive in California without a California license. But it's important to note that in this situation they're not driving at all (the latency would make that unfeasible). They're there to disambiguate complicated situations and point the car in the right direction.
Try to not let clickbait headlines shape your view of a situation.