Waymo refuses to provide critical safety data, signaling it is not driverless and in trouble — Watch what everyone else does now
Reference articles
Waymo sues state DMV to keep robotaxi safety details secret — https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-01-28/waymo-robot-taxi-sues-state-secret-black-ice
Waymo sues California DMV to keep driverless crash data under wraps — https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/28/22906513/waymo-lawsuit-california-dmv-crash-data-foia
From the LA Times article (Yes it’s behind a paywall. But they have more information than the others)
The topics Waymo wants to keep hidden include how it plans to handle driverless car emergencies, what it would do if a robot taxi started driving itself where it wasn’t supposed to go, and what constraints there are on the car’s ability to traverse San Francisco’s tunnels, tight curves and steep hills. Waymo also wants to keep secret descriptions of crashes involving its driverless cars.
Overall — For Waymo or anyone else to say they are “driverless” and use the public, especially children, the elderly, disabled etc, as needless human Guinea pigs to further their hype without providing proof of safety and engineering due diligence is unethical, unprofessional, incompetent and grossly negligent.
If Waymo or anyone else had legitimate L4 driverless or autonomous systems they would trip over themselves to get this and other data out to the public. This to differentiate themselves from others and build trust. The other data elements would be scenarios learned, identifying which disengagements would likely have been crashes and proof their simulation and each model has the requisite fidelity. They don’t provide ANY of this because they can’t. If they produced it the information would show they are misleading the us about being driverless, that they are failing and putting us at risk needlessly.
The argument this is IP is a joke, red herring, and a cop out. What the system does, especially with regard to how it preforms and the maneuvers it takes to do so is not IP. How it does those things may be. What this means if they will not cede to a “driver’s test” and well as keeping everyone in the dark.
The question now is what does everyone else do? To include industry groups like the PAVE Campaign. Odds are they will all stay silent and hope Waymo succeeds. As they are no better off. Which means, how much more information does the industry need, especially reporters, to see the current development and testing approaches are failing?
Below are a couple articles that explain my POV in more detail. Including why the industry would rather harm people and go down with the ship than change.
Nostradamus? SAE Autonomous Vehicle Magazine declares I am “Prescient”
Waymo and Cruise should prove their systems are legitimately L4
Pride is Dooming the Driverless Vehicle Industry-Leadership Needs to Step Up
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 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 on C4ISR for DoD/DHS
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
