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Frame from TV journalist documents wild ride inside Waymo self-driving car in San Francisco Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

TV journalist documents wild ride inside Waymo self-driving car in San Francisco

ABC7 News Bay Area
News
YouTube
1 HN user recommended this news clip1 month2023–2024 score 1
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Cited in self-driving threads as a firsthand look at robotaxi rides, mostly to point out its glitches and doubts about readiness.

An ABC7 News Bay Area reporter rides in a driverless Waymo robotaxi through San Francisco and documents the trip, including a couple of awkward moments. It is a short TV news segment showing what a robotaxi ride is actually like.

“is a news reporter's video of taking a ride in one, so you can see what it's like to ride in one.” (HN, 2023)

1 recommendations · 1 citations · 3 critical · News · news from the time

5 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@fragmede Dec 2023 Recommends
on HN thread On being wrong about AI
Read more
I summon a Waymo car every few days, and it takes me from point A to point B for about the same price as an Uber or Lyft. This only works so long as point A and B are both in San Francisco, but for an average person in San Francisco with access to the app, self-driving cars are already here. You can argue that person isn't average for a number of reasons, but the cars are real and giving rides to members of the general public. [this video] is a news reporter's video of taking a ride in one, so you can see what it's like to ride in one. She's a news reporter and thus not your average person because she has access to Waymo because she's a reporter, but members of the general public are also getting access and are able to do this as well. After watching that, I think a reasonable average person could believe that self driving cars are here. As was said upthread, the future is here but unevenly distributed.
A news reporter rides a Waymo so you can see what it's like.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@rapind Oct 2023 Cites it
on HN thread California suspends GM Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment
Read more
Maybe this is a fluke, but a few months ago an ABC reporter documented her Waymo ride and it had a couple goof ups. [this video] Ultimately, I don't think the driving screw ups were that big of a deal (just my opinion). The big deal though is the moronic lack of customer support. How hard is it really to have a customer support staff a phone call away that can reassure the customer and either debug the issue to get them sorted out or at least offer alternatives. It would do so much to improve the users perception. So, typical Google... Phenomenal engineering, and horrible customer service. Maybe it was a just hit piece though and they cut out some contextual video? No idea.

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