"the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it" (#JKGabraith)
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
They spent $2.5b on #SelfDrivingCars, producing a vehicle whose mean distance between fatal crashes was half a mile. Then they paid another company $400 million to take this self-licking ice-cream cone off their hands:
#SelfDrivingCars#AutonomousVehicles#Surveillance#Privacy: "It is imperative that as more self-driving cars occupy our city streets, collecting vast quantities of data, that we have strong privacy laws that address both the personal data that the cars process and police access to that data. We also need a better understanding of how much footage police request access to and when, if ever, companies that operate autonomous vehicles will push back against overly broad requests. It is also essential that we learn whether police are given historic footage or real-time live access to peer through the cameras on the vehicles.
In the coming years, cities and regulators will have to have difficult choices when it comes to how autonomous vehicles should be able to safely operate. It is imperative that, in addition to pedestrians and driver safety, regulators consider the civil liberties implications for the tremendous amount of data and footage collected by these self-driving cars."
#Tesla#Cars#SelfDrivingCars: "As a child-size mannequin stands in a traffic lane on a rural two-lane road, a Tesla in Full Self-Driving mode barrels toward it. At the wheel: a giant teddy bear. The car’s driver monitoring system doesn’t issue any warnings. The front end whacks the mannequin, sending it flying into the air. And the car drives on, as if nothing happened.
It’s the latest salvo from activist organization the Dawn Project, which publishes videos aimed at showing how badly Tesla’s automated driving technology can behave. Dan O’Dowd, the wealthy, tech-savvy activist who founded and self-funds the Dawn Project, said he wants to ensure that “the safety-critical systems that everyone’s life depends on are fail-safe and can’t be hacked.”"
#SelfDrivingCars#RoboTaxis#AVs#AI: "Years after the industry first promised self-driving cars were supposed to arrive, some boosters point to the trials happening in San Francisco as proof we’re finally on the cusp of the driverless revolution. But there’s plenty of reason to believe companies are once again overpromising on what they can deliver. The robotaxis are constantly blocking transit and emergency vehicles, and have become a new form of ubiquitous surveillance to aid the police department.
In the viral video, Safe Street Rebel advises opponents of the autonomous vehicles (AVs) to start placing the city’s many orange traffic cones on their hoods to disable them. It’s a protest, but it’s also a way to draw attention to an important decision by the state regulator on whether to significantly expand robotaxi services that was due to be made on July 13, but has now been delayed until August 10. The activist group says the delay is “a sign that our campaign is working.”
To understand more about what’s happening in San Francisco, I spoke with an anonymous activist from Safe Street Rebel. The original video has been removed from TikTok, but you can watch it on Instagram or Twitter."
Companies made fortunes operating illegal taxis throughout the entire country and cops have never done a goddamn thing about it, but put a cone on a car owned by a big company and Waymo feels confident the cops would use violence to stop it.
The Technological #Antisolutions post has been getting some attention recently. A few months back, I was contracted to extend that post to ~4,000 words for a magazine. For a variety of reasons, that didn't work out, so I've posted it on the blog:
Pony.ai wins license to roll out fully unmanned robotaxis in Shenzhen (interestingengineering.com)
Baidu also won the same unmanned license for Shenzhen a week prior.
Robotaxi Service Expansion in SF Delayed By State Regulators (sfstandard.com)
Regulators will delay the vote on Waymo and Cruise’s robotaxi expansion to July 13th.