Under the Wheels of Progress: A Pedestrian's Dance with Driverless Disaster

AI, Oh MI, the day we've all been (sadly) expecting has finally happened - a driverless car leaves a sidewalk human-LESS. It's another 'Indian Summer' night in the heart of San Francisco, the streets are flirting with the yellow and red First-Responder (yet again). Initially, my first instincts is that someone is again having to revisit the gates before being jolted back to life with Narcan - A.K.A. another fentanyl overdose. That can't be it though, there's foot-patrol police arriving at the scene too, it's gotta be something else.

At a second glimpse of the street, I see that the red and yellow lights are barely coming to a stop. As I get closer I see a team of paramedics dismounting and rushing towards a "Cruise" car stopped at a random spot in the middle of the road as they usually get. This one is different. There appears to be a head lodged under the back tires. I suddenly get a clear picture. There's a woman trapped under the car.

As this grim realization is being processed in my head the paramedics, without skipping a beat resort to grabbing wood wedges from their fire engine to relieve pressure from the woman. Within seconds 5th and Market turns into a dramatic scene of firefighters, medics, and police. This reminded me of the King Kong scene where nobody really know how to respond because the situation hasn't exactly happened before.

It wasn't long until the cops started corralling the scene as a crime scene and forcing us out of view.

I learned later it was a result of a hit-and-run. It was then that the Cruise autonomous vehicle ran over the poor woman and dragged her under the car. I stayed there for a while, and it was about 45 minutes to an hour until any news came to the scene. It dawned on me that it was probably the first, or the biggest incident of its kind in human history.

The following morning I walked by the accident scene on my way to a gig nearby. The bloodstains from her head looked like she was dragged a solid 3 feet or so. The thought of the pain she must of experienced ran through my head. I couldn't imagine how horrible that must have been.

Unlike a human driver, there's no one at hand to get mad at. How weird is that?

So this did in fact ended being a that nail to the coffin for General Motor's project "Cruise" - for now.

On October 24th, 2023 the Department of Motor Vehicles (CA) suspended Cruise's license to operate in California. The DMV cited the following reasons for General Motor's suspension:

• 13 CCR §228.20 (b) (6) – Based upon the performance of the vehicles, the Department determines the manufacturer’s vehicles are not safe for the public’s operation.

• 13 CCR §228.20 (b) (3) – The manufacturer has misrepresented any information related to safety of the autonomous technology of its vehicles.

• 13 CCR §227.42 (b) (5) – Any act or omission of the manufacturer or one of its agents, employees, contractors, or designees which the department finds makes the conduct of autonomous vehicle testing on public roads by the manufacturer an unreasonable risk to the public.

• 13 CCR §227.42 (c) – The department shall immediately suspend or revoke the Manufacturer’s Testing Permit or a Manufacturer’s Testing Permit – Driverless Vehicles if a manufacturer is engaging in a practice in such a manner that immediate suspension is required for the safety of persons on a public road.

To my knowledge, at the time of this writing, there isn't any public data as of what Cruise needs to do in order to get their license reinstated.

On October 26th, 2023 Cruise suspended its operations nationwide. Then in December 14th. 2023 Cruise lays off 24% of its autonomous vehicle workforce.

Google's project Waymo on the other hand is doing pretty good. And despite this accident, their research shows autonomous cars can be better at avoiding accidents than humans. Honestly, I thought we were making progress as humans, but after the Tide Pod and Cinnamon challenge and stuff, we kind of have a renewed certificate of authenticity that we also aren't super bright as a species all the time. With that being said, I'm on the fence with this stuff. Personally, I hate it. A lot. I don't like seeing them on the road, I hate they get stuck on the road all the time and impede traffic. Sometimes they almost hit you and you want to flip them off and then get even more mad there isn't anyone inside to receive it. I don't know.. I hate them. At the time, I don't have to like them. Maybe they do have a place, maybe they don't.

I do like to see the regulation going on, although it's kind of hard concept to grasp. The technology is so new and I'm sure there's a lot of pencil pushers somewhere out there scratching their heads too. I'm glad it's not my job. Im sure there's going to be a lot of torches and pitchforks as regulation happens. How do you even regulate it? Do you allow 'X' amounts of accidents per year? If so, then how many? Lets rewind a bit, how are you even keeping track? By percentages? Or number of accidents?

That alone is a huge determining factor that will require immense amount of thinking. Like let's say they allow only 2% of their trips in a 365 period to get into an accident before their license is pulled. Of that 2%, what percentage is allowed for fatal accidents? 1%? All 2%? Okay, so does that mean they get a free-pass to take someone to The Lord every year? With fatal accidents, someone goes to jail and they get a manslaughter charge. Who's picking up the charge here? No one (probably not)? Okay so what's the fee they will have to pay the state? So that means our lives are worth 'X' amount of dollars to _____ state. Then they get to do it again next year? What's going on here??

Okay so let's take a pause and exit this rabbit hole real quick. There is definitely more than two downside to this AI technology. Aside from acting as the Terminator in downtown SF, "dey took err jobs!" (in my angry South Park Voice).

My biggest complaint about all of this AI tech is that it's taking a lot of blue-collared jobs. And the majority of people have blue collar jobs. Which means that the majority of people are being negatively affected by these technologies. Even news outlets like the NYT is suing OpenAI over using their content to train their models. My theory is that eventually all the companies who have big pockets will dump their resources into tapping into industries, eventually this will create a crisis where everyone is competing for jobs because their jobs got replaced by their non-complaining cheaper counterparts and eventually a handful of companies will have complete control over people's incomes and their living standards. I don't really watch movies anymore, but I'm sure there's one about this. At least it feels like there should be one.

Of course this is crazy worst case scenario if everything goes unregulated which is unlikely, but hey I'm just thinking unhinged here.

- Bay Phoenix