A Los Angeles-based technology entrepreneur nearly missed his flight last month after being trapped inside a broken down self-driving car for several minutes.
Mike Johns was heading to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport in a Waymo self-driving car, but while he was calling the company for help, the car began repeatedly circling the parking lot. Turned 8 times.
“I put my seatbelt on. I can't get out of the car. Has this been hacked? What's going on?” he can be heard telling a Waymo representative. video he posted Posted on LinkedIn 3 weeks ago. “I feel like I'm in a movie. Is someone kidding me? And I got to get on the plane.”
Ms Johns told the Guardian she initially thought it was a prank. “I have a lot of smart friends who work in the technology industry… [I thought] “Maybe it was my friend,” he said. But as the vehicle kept looping around the island on the property, he realized there was a big problem. “There is a problem with this car.”
He felt dizzy as he continued circling the grounds, and at that moment, he said, “It felt like a scene from a sci-fi thriller.'' A Waymo representative advised her to open the app when she tried to stop the car, but said in the video that she “didn't have the option to take control of the car.”
Waymo said in a statement that the issue was resolved within minutes. He eventually managed to catch a flight from Arizona to Southern California, but luckily he was late. However, he was dissatisfied with the experience and said he couldn't tell whether the agent he spoke to was a human or an AI.
“This is another example of today's digital world, where it's a half-baked product and no one meets the customer, the consumer, in the middle,” says the futurist, who is knowledgeable about artificial intelligence. said Mr. Johns, who calls himself. CBS Los Angeles.
The experience was traumatic, Johns said. “I was surprised. It reminded me even more of ghosts in machines. Some people will refer to self-driving cars or self-driving cars, but I call it 'cars without humans.' He said he had used Waymo once before and said his recent experience would not deter him from using self-driving cars in the future, but said there were still issues to be worked out.
“As a futurist, I think this is where everything is going, so we better get there first,” Johns said. “There's just a problem that requires stitches.”
Waymo told the Guardian that the “loop event” was addressed through regularly scheduled software updates. The company said Johns was not charged for the trip.
Waymo says it offers self-driving services in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin, and provided more than 4 million fully self-driving trips last year. While the company's vehicles have taken millions of safe rides, there have been some high-profile incidents, including the death of a dog and a crash involving a Waymo self-driving car. Injured a person riding a bicycleis causing concern.
For Johns, the experience provided valuable insight for a book he is writing about how artificial intelligence will impact work. “It became my own case study,” he said.
