People like this guy waving his gun at a driverless Waymo van in Arizona are attacking self-driving vehicles with rocks, knives, and *their own cars*, sending a message to tech companies like Waymo, which is owned by Alphabet (Google’s parent company). That message is, please go experiment with artificial intelligence in somebody else’s neighborhood.
He got in trouble for it, but man, I can empathize.
By the way, the image was captured by surveillance cameras on the Waymo van, provided to the police, and sort of proving the dude’s point.
There have been accidents in the area involving the autonomous vans.
The New York Times reports on the tire-slashing of a driverless vehicle that once happily roamed the streets of Chandler, which isn’t far from Phoenix. There have been 21 violent attacks on driverless cars there in the last few years.
Waymo started testing self-driving vehicles in Chandler in 2016.
Waymo did not ask the human residents if they were cool with it.
