Apple's self-driving cars in Project Titan experienced multiple safety failures during testing near Silicon Valley headquarters, including hitting curbs, lane departure issues, and nearly striking a pedestrian who had right of way.
Apple has been developing autonomous electric vehicles through Project Titan since around 2015, with plans to launch by 2025. In August, Apple conducted a successful 40-mile test drive from Bozeman, Montana to Big Sky ski resort, which was filmed by drones for executive presentations. However, when testing resumed near Apple's Cupertino, California headquarters, the modified Lexus SUV test vehicles experienced significant navigation problems. The cars repeatedly slammed into curbs and had difficulty staying in lanes while crossing intersections. Most seriously, one test vehicle nearly hit a jogger who was crossing the street and had the right of way, with the AI system apparently failing to recognize the pedestrian's priority. These incidents occurred as part of Apple's effort to develop fully autonomous vehicles without steering wheels or pedals, distinguishing their approach from competitors. The project has been plagued by executive departures, including machine-learning division head Ian Goodfellow, and persistent software problems over its eight-year development period.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
AI systems that fail to perform reliably or effectively under varying conditions, exposing them to errors and failures that can have significant consequences, especially in critical applications or areas that require moral reasoning.
AI system
Due to a decision or action made by an AI system
Unintentional
Due to an unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed