Waymos are driving down light-rail tracks now.
[Warning: Language]
A real thing that happened on Wednesday in AZ.
Not A.I.
According to Arizona's Family, the scene lasted about 15 minutes:
'Light rail operations staff responded to the scene, and Waymo was contacted. To minimize service impacts, northbound and southbound trains exchanged passengers before reversing direction to continue service,' the spokesperson said in a statement.
Valley Metro said the incident caused no significant delays and the scene was clear within 15 minutes.
A tech professor at nearby ASU had some thoughts that put this all in perspective:
'This is exactly one of those edge cases, what we call them. Something unexpected where the machine drove like a machine rather than a person,' [Andrew] Maynard said.
Waymo vehicles are equipped with 29 cameras and have their routes and systems updated weekly. However, in the area where the incident happened, there was construction. The light rail was added to this spot within the last year, which Maynard said could have contributed to the rail track detour.
'I think Waymo has a challenge because no matter what they do with their system, there are always going to be unexpected circumstances where they have to learn from them,' Maynard said.
Regardless of all of this, Maynard says Waymos are "safer than human drivers because they don't have distractions."
No distractions unless of course there's construction and the road is completely different than the Waymo's maps suggest.
Then it gets a little distracted!
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