> On top of that, I doubt any human trucker is defending their load against two humans with shotguns, and that doesn't happen today enough to make the news.

True, but if you aren't assaulting / endangering a driver, then the crime is lower-risk.

But if you are robbing an autonomous vehicle, you're probably going to be recorded doing it, and fleeing, which raises your risk because it leaves a pretty strong evidence trail. Yes, ski masks can be used to obscure your face, but car makes can be tracked if the getaway car has no plates.

If this becomes a frequent enough issue to matter economically, then perhaps we should start looking into what incentivizes stuff like that in the first place, and deal with it.

The thiefs use a laser to blind the cameras. Or a mirror to reflect the sun. Or spray paint. Or a smokescreen. Or other solutions. Easy.

> The thiefs use a laser to blind the cameras. Or a mirror to reflect the sun. Or spray paint. Or a smokescreen. Or other solutions. Easy.

None of these would work, except maybe "other solutions".

A getaway car isn’t needed, you just amble away and walk two miles the other direction.

If you just robbed a truck, are you going to carry all the contents on your back? For two miles?

A $100 foldable shopping wagon can carry $100k of iPhones trivially.

Up the hill! Both ways!

A self-driving vehicle will have far, far more sensing than any of today's trucks. Someone will know you're robbing them the moment you start, know where you are, be able to watch the entire event as it happens, and every ounce of it will be recorded.

And none of that will matter because they will just have a video of someone in a ski mask robbing a truck and walking away.

Robbing a truck of what? Trucks are full of heavy stuff that's not particularly valuable. Were it otherwise it wouldn't get shipped in an unguarded truck.

iPhones are not shipped in a guarded truck.

Walk away with 20 tons of stolen goods? How are you going to accomplish that? Why not do something interesting like reprogram a whole fleet of cargo trucks to deliver the cargo to the wrong destination?

People would steal from trucks significantly more frequently if there was no risk of harm like there is with the shotgun scenario.

I had two bikes stolen that had locks at them (at different times) from my apartment in Mountain View. Theft is rampant and removing the threat of a real driver pushing back completely changes the calculus for trucks.