> Jackie Fielder, a progressive San Francisco supervisor who represents the Mission District, has been among the most vocal critics. She introduced a city resolution after Kit Kat’s death that calls for the state Legislature to let voters decide if driverless cars can operate where they live. (Currently, the state regulates autonomous vehicles in California.)
If this had anything to do with safety, this so-called “Progressive” supervisor Jackie Fielder would be investigating what safety features would be feasible on Waymos: emergency stop switches or stop commands, under car cameras, questioning whether the Waymo detected the cat and then just forgot about it when it walked under the car, etc.
Instead, she is using this to secure territory for obviously less safe Uber and Lyft drivers who are represented by the Teamsters. Such a cynical politician.
When a plane crashes no one says “let’s let people decide if planes should be allowed to fly over their houses”, we say “let’s figure out exactly what went wrong and how to make sure it never happens again” and that’s probably why aviation is one of the safest modes of transportation
So what we can infer here is that if Waymo ever kills a person, it’s basically over for them in SF. Your plane analogy is apt, because for us to “get there” with autonomous cars, where it’s anywhere and everywhere, we’ll have to be willing to basically die to some degree. Just like in planes.
Progressives always defend legacy obsolete businesses against competition. They tried to stop Uber and Lyft from replacing cabs and now they do the same with Waymo.
People driving cars kill cats all the time. I would bet much more than self driving cars will. The overall number of cats being killed by cars will probably go down with self driving cars.
Absolutely. And it's not just cat's. Look at the number of deer that get hit by cars every year. And like I said in another post, I saw two dead raccoons by the side of the road yesterday in the space of a few miles. Cats, dogs, deer, raccoons, bobcats, etc. should all be strictly indoor animals.
>“A human driver can be held accountable, can hop out, say sorry, can be tracked down by police if it’s a hit-and-run,” Ms. Fielder said in an interview. “Here, there is no one to hold accountable.”
But would a human even suffer consequences in this case? Else in the article mentions:
>The city does not track how many animals are killed by cars each year, but the number is in the hundreds, according to Deb Campbell, a spokeswoman for Animal Care and Control in San Francisco.
and
>Waymo does not dispute that one of its cars killed Kit Kat. The company released a statement saying that when one of its vehicles was picking up passengers, a cat “darted under our vehicle as it was pulling away.”
In other words, it could have easily happened to a human driver, and all the uproar in this case is only because people are being selectively angry against Waymo for... other reasons:
>Still, Kit Kat’s death has given new fuel to detractors. They argue that robot taxis steal riders from public transit, eliminate jobs for people, enrich Silicon Valley executives — and are just plain creepy.
>...
>Ms. Fielder has strong ties to labor unions, including the Teamsters, which has fought for more regulation of autonomous vehicles, largely out of concern for members who could eventually lose their own driving jobs in other sectors.
It's obviously sad that an animal was killed in an accident, but the outrage towards Waymo and media coverage definitely seems disproportionate given statistical context, and I was pleasantly surprised that the article made efforts to point that out rather than dogpiling on Waymo.
> But would a human even suffer consequences in this case?
Criminally, no. Civil liability, probably only up to the price of a cat, and that's if you can prove it wasn't the cat's or its owner's fault.
But I don't think that's what they're talking about. A human can feel bad, genuinely apologize, etc. And by extension, if they cause more serious harm, they are personally liable and might see the inside of a jail cell. A corporation has no feelings and no one is ever going to prison even if a Waymo car runs over a child.
This might be the first time we're putting autonomous tech that's likely to cause a fair number of deaths in plain view, so I think there are legitimate questions around how we want to handle that. Does the corporate liability model need to change? If it doesn't, how long before the first ex-spouse of a Waymo engineer gets "accidentally" ran over by an autonomous car?
>But I don't think that's what they're talking about. A human can feel bad, genuinely apologize, etc.
For this particular case, I don't see this as anything other than performative. Yes, it might make people feel better because someone is sorry, but it's not going to change anything. No taxi driver is going to look under their car after picking up a passenger, on the off chance there's a cat under.
>And by extension, if they cause more serious harm, they are personally liable and might see the inside of a jail cell. A corporation has no feelings and no one is ever going to prison even if a Waymo car runs over a child.
All of this assumes that Waymo is actually at fault, which isn't the case for this accident. It's certainly something worth considering, but using this accident as a rallying cry is massively disingenuous. It's like having a rape happen and then going on a rant about immigrants being rapists, but when it turned out the suspect wasn't actually an immigrant, falling back to "well the potential of immigrants to be rapists is still a serious problem!".
> how long before the first ex-spouse of a Waymo engineer gets "accidentally" ran over by an autonomous car?
This is even more unhinged, and goes from supposing that Waymo might negligent to straight up murder (ie. intentional killing).
You definitely can not. If you hit someone when drunk you are going to prison. However, if you are not drunk and just say "I didn't see them", you'll be fine.
I always assume that people who say this either don't own cats, bought one from a breeder and raised it indoors from day one, or live in an apartment building where you need to go through multiple doors to get outside.
Most cats that spent some time outdoors will want to be outdoors. In many settings, it's nearly impossible to keep them in because they will try to sneak out every time they get a chance. Package delivery, you coming back with groceries, etc.
And most of the anti-outdoor-cat stats are more or less bullsh-t. The average lifespan of feral cats might be five years. The average lifespan of a cat that has a home but gets to go out is probably pretty close to an indoor cat. And while outdoor cats can kill birds for sport, they're not causing extinction events in most places. They mostly interact with abundant, trash-feeding urban birds. You might not like the killing, but it's an artificial ecosystem we created and that can handle the predation just fine.
>>> They pose a major threat to birds, killing an estimated 2.4 billion birds each year in the U.S. alone, making cats the top source of direct, human-caused bird mortality in the U.S.
Is this the stat you have issue with? Or is the contention that a pet on a city street at 11:40 PM is not highly at risk of being run over by a human driver?
I just want to point out that you called the outdoor cat stats bullshit, and then proceed to make up "probably true because it feels that way" facts to show that.
Maybe the stats are bullshit and maybe they're not, but I don't care. It's beside the point. Cats want to go outside so you should let them, or don't have them in places where they can't like very dense urban areas. Would you spend your whole life indoors if it gave you another 10 years? I think not. Somehow people who would never accept this for themselves have no problem doing it to their cats.
Readit News
If this had anything to do with safety, this so-called “Progressive” supervisor Jackie Fielder would be investigating what safety features would be feasible on Waymos: emergency stop switches or stop commands, under car cameras, questioning whether the Waymo detected the cat and then just forgot about it when it walked under the car, etc.
Instead, she is using this to secure territory for obviously less safe Uber and Lyft drivers who are represented by the Teamsters. Such a cynical politician.
There are planes that are certified to fly over populated areas, and those that are not.
Boeing management had been described as Boy Scouts, whereas the McDonnell Douglas managers were Hunter-Killer Assassins...
https://newrepublic.com/article/154944/boeing-737-max-invest...
It would childish not to come to terms with that.
Perhaps you need another way of thinking about these things.
Dead Comment
I'm sad for the cat, but this story is still borderline satire.
Letting your cat roam outdoors is cruelty.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKlzDjFNEP0/
They wish so clearly to roam, to hunt, to mark territory and to meet other cats. A full life excels a maximally long one, no?
Once you've committed that root cruelty, it is more cruel to imprison it in safety or allow it to roam in an environment with known dangers?
But would a human even suffer consequences in this case? Else in the article mentions:
>The city does not track how many animals are killed by cars each year, but the number is in the hundreds, according to Deb Campbell, a spokeswoman for Animal Care and Control in San Francisco.
and
>Waymo does not dispute that one of its cars killed Kit Kat. The company released a statement saying that when one of its vehicles was picking up passengers, a cat “darted under our vehicle as it was pulling away.”
In other words, it could have easily happened to a human driver, and all the uproar in this case is only because people are being selectively angry against Waymo for... other reasons:
>Still, Kit Kat’s death has given new fuel to detractors. They argue that robot taxis steal riders from public transit, eliminate jobs for people, enrich Silicon Valley executives — and are just plain creepy.
>...
>Ms. Fielder has strong ties to labor unions, including the Teamsters, which has fought for more regulation of autonomous vehicles, largely out of concern for members who could eventually lose their own driving jobs in other sectors.
Criminally, no. Civil liability, probably only up to the price of a cat, and that's if you can prove it wasn't the cat's or its owner's fault.
But I don't think that's what they're talking about. A human can feel bad, genuinely apologize, etc. And by extension, if they cause more serious harm, they are personally liable and might see the inside of a jail cell. A corporation has no feelings and no one is ever going to prison even if a Waymo car runs over a child.
This might be the first time we're putting autonomous tech that's likely to cause a fair number of deaths in plain view, so I think there are legitimate questions around how we want to handle that. Does the corporate liability model need to change? If it doesn't, how long before the first ex-spouse of a Waymo engineer gets "accidentally" ran over by an autonomous car?
For this particular case, I don't see this as anything other than performative. Yes, it might make people feel better because someone is sorry, but it's not going to change anything. No taxi driver is going to look under their car after picking up a passenger, on the off chance there's a cat under.
>And by extension, if they cause more serious harm, they are personally liable and might see the inside of a jail cell. A corporation has no feelings and no one is ever going to prison even if a Waymo car runs over a child.
All of this assumes that Waymo is actually at fault, which isn't the case for this accident. It's certainly something worth considering, but using this accident as a rallying cry is massively disingenuous. It's like having a rape happen and then going on a rant about immigrants being rapists, but when it turned out the suspect wasn't actually an immigrant, falling back to "well the potential of immigrants to be rapists is still a serious problem!".
> how long before the first ex-spouse of a Waymo engineer gets "accidentally" ran over by an autonomous car?
This is even more unhinged, and goes from supposing that Waymo might negligent to straight up murder (ie. intentional killing).
Never. In the US you can drive drunk and speeding and kill a person and walk away with basically an "oopsie".
Most cats that spent some time outdoors will want to be outdoors. In many settings, it's nearly impossible to keep them in because they will try to sneak out every time they get a chance. Package delivery, you coming back with groceries, etc.
And most of the anti-outdoor-cat stats are more or less bullsh-t. The average lifespan of feral cats might be five years. The average lifespan of a cat that has a home but gets to go out is probably pretty close to an indoor cat. And while outdoor cats can kill birds for sport, they're not causing extinction events in most places. They mostly interact with abundant, trash-feeding urban birds. You might not like the killing, but it's an artificial ecosystem we created and that can handle the predation just fine.
Is this the stat you have issue with? Or is the contention that a pet on a city street at 11:40 PM is not highly at risk of being run over by a human driver?
https://abcbirds.org/solutions/keep-cats-indoors/
I’ve also known people whose cats got hit by cars. Even driveway accidents.
Is there some reason we don’t want a smarter car that avoids pets and wildlife?
Not taking a side, but your argument is...weak.
I don't think the Japanese revere pigeons anywhere as much as we seem to revere cats.
Absurd as it may seem, Waymos should consider cats in their safety program.
And GOOG has been smart in their PR unlike Cruise so I'd think they can appreciate that killing cats offends the imagination.
Justice for KitKat and let's hope Waymo takes cat safety to heart.