On roads teeming with robotaxis, crossing the street can be harrowing; The Washington Post, December 30, 2024

 Geoffrey A. Fowler, The Washington Post; On roads teeming with robotaxis, crossing the street can be harrowing

"When I try to cross my street at a marked crosswalk, the Waymo robotaxis often wouldn’t yield to me. I would step out into the white-striped pavement, look at the Waymo, wait to see whether it’s going to stop — and the car would zip right past.

It cut me off again and again on the path I use to get to work and take my kids to the park. It happened even when I was stuck in a small median halfway across the road. So I began using my phone to film myself crossing. I documented more than a dozen Waymo cars failing to yield in the span of a week. (You can watch some of my recordings below.)

It is a cautionary tale about how AI, intended to make us more safe, also needs to learn how to coexist with us. The experience has taught my family that the safest place around an autonomous vehicle is inside it, not walking around it...

What’s more, how does an AI designed to follow the law learn how to break it?...

 showed my videos to outside experts, too. Phil Koopman, a Carnegie Mellon University professor who conducts research on autonomous-vehicle safety, said Waymo had no excuse not to stop."