Waymo and the industry can now legally hide proof their systems are not driverless or safe
Reference article -Waymo to keep robotaxi safety details secret, court rules — https://techcrunch.com/2022/02/22/waymo-to-keep-robotaxi-safety-details-secret-court-rules/
Well, here we go. A court, who likely has no idea what it just did, gave Waymo and every other AV company the ability to hide safety data and any real ability to know if their systems are actually driverless. And keep in mind the CA DMV wasn’t even asking for the right data to do so in the first place. That being:
- List of learned scenarios, especially crash scenarios with details — (The learned scenario testing data must also include testing the sensor, perception and planning systems. The reason for this being machine and deep learning can do the right thing for the wrong reason or by luck That is because unlike people, these systems do not yet infer well. Current general and deep learning processes are not up to that yet.)
- Disengagement data with likely crashes designated, including simulation
- Proof of all simulation model fidelity, especially sensors
Of course, the IP argument Waymo used is ridiculous. There is no technical IP involved in what is being done, only how. Problem is Waymo was successful in getting the court to believe that their competition finding out about their actual performance is IP as well, as it would give them an unfair advantage. The worst part being these companies who now want to remove the verify part from trust but verify, are now saying their systems are fully L4 and no longer require “safety drivers”. A process that should rarely have existed in the first place. (See my articles below for more details). So now we have a far worse situation than having to needlessly harm or kill human Guinea pigs behind the wheel, which will increase as these companies stop avoiding disengagements which they have to do at some point or never learn or test many crash scenarios. We have companies lying about their safety and capabilities without the very poor option of their at least being a “safety driver” to avoid harming the public in at least some instances, especially for now while they avoid those crash scenarios. (There is also the diabolical possibility they never sacrifice people to learn many crash scenarios and simply play the odds and deal with that slowly over time.) Now let’s see if the silence and tacit approval on all of this continues from the industry, government, and press. Where the echo chamber all quietly agrees to not challenge this and keep the largest dirty secret and engineering debacle in history quiet. At least until that first small child or family dies. After all, if any of Waymo’s competitors thought they had the ability to provide even the woefully deficient data set the CA DMV asked for wouldn’t they rush to trot it out to differentiate themselves from Waymo? Sorry, but if you do not see this situation is exactly what I am describing it as now and over the past four years, you are a fool. And if you do see this and remain quiet you are grossly negligent as well and party to the collapse of the industry.
Below are a couple articles that explain my POV in more detail.
By not providing any meaningful proof of being driverless, even fighting doing through a lawsuit, Waymo, Cruise and Gatik are misleading the public, putting their lives at risk, and collapsing
My Industry-wide and Gatik specific testimony at Kansas Senate AV Hearing
Nostradamus? SAE Autonomous Vehicle Magazine declares I am “Prescient”
Autonomous Vehicle Industry’s Self-Inflicted and Avoidable Collapse — Ongoing Update
The Autonomous Vehicle Industry can be Saved by doing the Opposite of what is being done now to create this technology
Waymo finally discovers gaming modeling and simulation technology is not adequate
How the failed Iranian hostage rescue in 1980 can save the Autonomous Vehicle industry
My name is Michael DeKort — I am Navy veteran (ASW-C4ISR) and a former system engineer, engineering, and program manager for Lockheed Martin. I worked in aircraft simulation, the software engineering manager for all of NORAD, a software project manager on an Aegis Weapon System baseline, and a C4ISR systems engineer for DoD/DHS and the US State Department (counter-terrorism). I am currently the Senior Advisory Technical Project Manager for FTI to the Army AI Task Force at CMU NREC (National Robotics Engineering Center)
Autonomous Industry Participation — Air and Ground
- Founder SAE On-Road Autonomous Driving Simulation Task Force
- Member SAE ORAD Verification and Validation Task Force
- Member UNECE WP.29 SG2 Virtual Testing
- Stakeholder USDOT VOICES (Virtual Open Innovation Collaborative Environment for Safety)
- Member SAE G-35, Modeling, Simulation, Training for Emerging AV Tech
- Member SAE G-34 / EUROCAE WG-114 Artificial Intelligence in Aviation
- Member Teleoperation Consortium
- Member CIVATAglobal — Civic Air Transport Association
- Stakeholder for UL4600 — Creating AV Safety Guidelines
- Member of the IEEE Artificial Intelligence & Autonomous Systems Policy Committee
SAE Autonomous Vehicle Engineering magazine editor calling me “prescient” regarding my position on Tesla and the overall driverless vehicle industry’s untenable development and testing approach — (Page 2) https://assets.techbriefs.com/EML/2021/digital_editions/ave/AVE-202109.pdf
Presented the IEEE Barus Ethics Award for Post 9/11 DoD/DHS Whistleblowing Efforts
