Two men blocked a Waymo autonomous taxi in San Francisco and harassed the female passenger inside, demanding her phone number while the self-driving car remained immobilized in the street.
On Saturday morning around 10 AM, a 28-year-old San Francisco tech worker named Amina V. was riding in a Waymo autonomous taxi when it stopped at a red light at Mission and Ninth streets. A man in a red hoodie approached and stood directly in front of the vehicle, preventing it from moving forward. A second man joined him, and both began harassing the passenger through the car's windows, demanding her phone number. The incident lasted several minutes, during which the autonomous vehicle remained completely immobilized because the men were blocking its path. Amina filmed part of the encounter and posted it on social media as a warning to other women. She contacted Waymo's in-car support system, which offered police assistance that she declined. The incident highlights a vulnerability in autonomous vehicles where they cannot maneuver around threatening pedestrians. Waymo, owned by Google's parent company Alphabet, apologized for the incident and stated such occurrences are 'exceedingly rare' among their 100,000 weekly trips across San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. The company provided 24/7 rider support and offered Amina compensation. This was not an isolated incident, as the report mentions a similar February 2024 case where a couple felt trapped in a Waymo when someone attempted to cover the vehicle's sensors.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
Delegating by humans of key decisions to AI systems, or AI systems that make decisions that diminish human control and autonomy, potentially leading to humans feeling disempowered, losing the ability to shape a fulfilling life trajectory, or becoming cognitively enfeebled.
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