Waymo announced Saturday night…
…that the Google-owned robotaxi company would suspend rides in San Francisco after riders reported vehicles causing traffic jams and … well, kinda just throwing their hands (wheels?) in the air.
“We have temporarily suspended our ride-hailing services given the broad power outage in San Francisco,” wrote Suzanne Philion, a company spokesperson, a little after 7 p.m., reports Mission Local. “We are focused on keeping our riders safe and ensuring emergency personnel have the clear access they need to do their work.”
Waymos use an advanced array of LiDAR sensors to navigate roads, using the mapped images to heeld at pedestrians, work around traffic lights, etc.; a collection of cameras also offers input for the onboard AI software to operate and “solve” traffic problems and operate; without proper input or cues, Waymo cars effectively “brick” when they doesn’t know what to do next — as was evident earlier this year when Waymos got stuck behind fireworks and left listless after dozens were summoned to a dead-end street.
A new evaluation of artificial intelligence systems suggests that while modern language models are becoming more capable at logical reasoning, they struggle significantly to distinguish between objective facts and subjective beliefs. The research indicates that even advanced models often fail to acknowledge that a person can hold a belief that is factually incorrect, which poses risks for their use in fields like healthcare and law.
