Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

Re:Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in ... by mholt on Thursday January 29, 2026 @12:55PM (#46813756)

The autonomous vehicle should know what it can't know, like children coming out from behind obstructions. Humans have this intuitive sense. Apparently autonomous systems do not, and do not drive carefully, or slower, or give more space, in those situations. Does it know that it's in a school zone? (Hopefully.) Does it know that school is starting or getting out? (Probably not.) Should it? (Absolutely yes.)

This is the fault of the software and company implementing it.

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Re:Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in ... by BugsJustFindMe on Thursday January 29, 2026 @01:46PM (#46814588)

> Humans have this intuitive sense.

Some do, some of the time. I'm always surprised by how much credence other people give to the idea that humans aren't on average very bad at things, including perception.

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Re:Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in ... by navigate8310 on Thursday January 29, 2026 @08:09PM (#46819345)

It's an autonomous vehicle fitted with a gazillion of sensors and data to drive itself. We can expect better from it than humans.

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Re:Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in ... by BugsJustFindMe on Friday January 30, 2026 @10:40AM (#46825684)

I'm not sure what your point is here since this was better than many humans. Was it better than all humans? No. But there also isn't a single human who's better than all humans.

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Re:Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in ... by recursive on Thursday January 29, 2026 @02:03PM (#46814877)

What's the success rate of this intuitive sense that humans have? Intuitions are wrong frequently.

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