'Why Do Waymos Keep Loitering in Front of My House?' (theverge.com) 66
Waymo robotaxis are repeatedly selecting identical parking spots in front of specific Los Angeles and Arizona homes between rides, puzzling residents who document the same vehicles returning to precise locations daily. The company states its vehicles choose parking based on local regulations, existing vehicle distribution, and proximity to high-demand areas but cannot explain the algorithmic specificity.
Carnegie Mellon autonomous vehicle expert Phil Koopman attributes the behavior to machine learning systems optimizing for specific spots without variation. Waymo said it had received neighbor complaints and has designated certain locations as no-parking zones for its fleet. The vehicles comply with three-hour parking limits, according to Los Angeles Department of Transportation regulations, governing commercial passenger vehicles under 22 feet.
Carnegie Mellon autonomous vehicle expert Phil Koopman attributes the behavior to machine learning systems optimizing for specific spots without variation. Waymo said it had received neighbor complaints and has designated certain locations as no-parking zones for its fleet. The vehicles comply with three-hour parking limits, according to Los Angeles Department of Transportation regulations, governing commercial passenger vehicles under 22 feet.
Waymo has it figured out (Score:2)
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The Waymo found a nook, pulled over to let me pass and I rolled by without a hitch.
I hope you gave it a 'thank you' wave.
Wait, why... (Score:3)
Is this even discussion. In the very first paragraph of the summary.
The company states its vehicles choose parking based on local regulations, existing vehicle distribution, and proximity to high-demand areas but cannot explain the algorithmic specificity.
And there you have it. No news report required. The most obvious answer is also the most likely. The car is parked in front of that particular location because it's very likely close to a central point to where the majority of it's rides will originate.
Next, do an article on why water is wet.
Re:Wait, why... (Score:5, Informative)
Next, do an article on why water is wet.
That would be interesting because water isn't wet. Water makes other things wet.
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Then an article on why water is not wet, which after looking up, was a lot more interesting then this article!
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A material is wet when its surface and pores are mostly covered/filled by a liquid. Water performs this function on itself, due to surface tension. Whenever it's not performing this role, it boils. To whatever extent water isn't becoming a gas, it is wet.
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Besides the dumbness of their circular logic, it's also just a lie. The entire concept of a "black box algorithm" that no one can peer inside or explain is just a lie. I
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> Is this even discussion. In the very first paragraph of the summary.
"The company states its vehicles choose parking based on local regulations, existing vehicle distribution, and proximity to high-demand areas but cannot explain the algorithmic specificity"
But there's more:
"Morgan, for her part [10 year old], is delighted by the Waymo’s return visits, since she sees it as approval of their family by the robot cars. Her parents have been more curious, so they’ve run some informal experiments
Optimization... (Score:5, Insightful)
"systems optimizing for specific spots without variation"
Pretty obviously exactly this. equidistant from A, B, and C or something like that. All they need to do is add in a small random factor to whatever algorithm they are using.
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Maybe the residents need to add a small random factor of flat tires.
Re:Optimization... (Score:4, Interesting)
>"Maybe the residents need to add a small random factor of flat tires."
Or, less dramatically, a trash can or cone or something.
Sure, it is legal to park on a public street in front of someone else's house/property. But it is kinda rude and frowned-upon. I wouldn't do that unless I had no other choice, mostly visiting someone and there were no other spots available.
Case in point, my neighbor's visitor parked a van directly up to a curb, about 15 feet across the property line, and it has been there for days. I was unable to mow that part of my sloped front yard yesterday. And from what I could tell, there was plenty of space to stay on the other side of the "line". I just checked now, it is still there.
My other-side neighbor's visitors often park right up to my driveway line (again, across the property line), and since my across-the-street neighbor decided it was a good idea to park his stupid trailer across from my driveway (so it wouldn't inconvenience HIM), it makes it extremely difficult to get in or out of my driveway to the somewhat narrow street. I don't understand why people can't think (and care) about how what they do affects others.
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americans voted for and support low a low trust society and these are the downstream consequences.
Huh. Have you checked out parking in Madrid? We were once triple-parked when it was time to leave our hotel. But Madrileño are used to it, you just honk the horn and people come out of the bars and move their cars.
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"Maybe the residents need to add a small random factor of flat tires." Or, less dramatically, a trash can or cone or something.
Both of these are Illegal things for a resident at nearby houses to cause. And if done in a high-traffic area or repeatedly, then people are very likely to get caught and cited.
Sure, it is legal to park on a public street in front of someone else's house/property. But it is kinda rude and frowned-upon.
It's not just legal to park there - it is their legal right to park there If pa
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I think you haven't considered the phenomenon of norms. A political theory I've been hearing lately considers norms to be the fundamental law of society. Legislation is different, less fundamental, because law is what you are really expected to obey. When someone puts their coat on a chair, the law is that the chair is reserved. It's not legislated that you can't sit in their chair, but you know you can't. It's the same for touching a stranger's food. Not assault, but the law is that you don't.
If you don't
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When someone puts their coat on a chair, the law is that the chair is reserved.
No.. That is actually just a hope not a law - you hope that people see property that would not be left behind and assume that space is taken but the taker had to step away briefly for some emergency. The second your coat ends up encroaching upon someone else's rights it is bound to be ejected. The waiter cleaning up may literally just toss the coat in a trash bin, not realizing the person who put it there has not forgott
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It seems like you worked fairly hard to miss my point. The key word was "norms", and the point is that the general actions in society is governed by these, not legislation. I heard the argument that most legislation was created to enforce norms, not the other way around--but I don't know enough history to confirm that. It's a picture you can imagine though, right? If a proto-human decided to sleep in another one's hut, the more respected tribe members would tell him, "No, you can't do that." Whereas they wo
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I should probably assume I did a terrible job of making my point rather than assuming you missed it through any fault of your own.
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I don't know why, but when facing these walls of text, so many of us have to remember to apply common decency rather than just doing it as a matter of course. I'm sure we wouldn't do that if we could hear each other's voices or see each other's faces.
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Ah ... "three-hour parking limits" (Score:2)
These are meant for humans, who would give up taking a car there if they need to re-park it every 3h, while it does nothing for self-driving cars (if anything it creates even more congestion from the cars re-shuffling all the time and is pissing away some energy too).
Next step (if not done already) is to play musical chairs between Waymos intentionally.
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Re:Ah ... "three-hour parking limits" (Score:4, Insightful)
But more congestion on roads, since you have not just the journey, but also the empty vehicle.
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When most people talk about this, their "ideal world" scenario for self-driving cars, they envision no one owning a car (How is beyond the scope of the comment) and the only "empty vehicles" are driving to get someone. Their scenarios are: the autonomous vehicle is driving someone somewhere, driving to get someone, or recharging/repairing somewhere. They always skip over everything else.
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Next step (if not done already) is to play musical chairs between Waymos intentionally.
If the city is smart they would make the 3-hour restriction Per street per vehicle owner or renter/lessee for passenger vehicles with a gross weight below 30k or 10 passengers, Or per driver for delivery or professional service vehicles conducting business such as a delivery, construction, or appointment at a nearby location.. And adjust the parking time allowed by driverless Taxis to essentially be much less.
Re: Ah ... "three-hour parking limits" (Score:2)
I think you basically have to legislate away these practices to have any hope of stopping them. For profit corporations don't have to live in the communities they disrupt.
Three hour limit (Score:2)
Yeah, 3 hour per car. What good is it if you have 5 cars in front of your house and when one leaves, another arrives?
Spill nails in front of your house (Score:1)
They won't come back again.
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Just use a parking chair. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
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I love running those things over, moving them out to the middle of the road, etc.
Re: Spill nails in front of your house (Score:1)
It wouldn't carry the same message.
Re: Spill nails in front of your house (Score:2)
Better not use a wheel chair, as that doesn't always stop a self driving car.
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Or smelly goo
It has to be said (Score:2)
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Put a few cones there (Score:5, Interesting)
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Or make it permit parking only with a short grace period so it can be used as a loading zone. (Cities need more loading zones.)
Re: Put a few cones there (Score:2)
Put out some cones with a note"Dear humans, please feel free to move cones and park.
Or drive over them a little bit on purpose just to let you know we're not an AI.
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Put out some cones with a note"Dear humans, please feel free to move cones and park. Please put back when you leave so Waymos stop parking here for extended periods so no one else can park. Most won't probably put them back but if Waymo finds it can't park there reliably they may move on. Human cutout sin front and behind the Waymo may work as well so it learns it gets blocked in often. Monkeywrenching is a powerful tool.
that's when they start hiring cheap humans to sit in the drivers seat just to move the cones.
Do they offer you candy? (Score:2)
If so, I'd be concerned.
3 hour parking (Score:3, Insightful)
Instead of relying on people being inconvenienced enough by the regulation to actually have their car there for 3 hours, it should be updated to specify 3 hours on that block, or in that parking lot.
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That wouldn't help if two or three waymos rotate their positions every three hours.
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It's tough because there's a principle of justice that a government should never make a law that's targeted at just one organization. Because it's messed up if Waymo isn't allowed to park but Staymo is. Maybe the city needs to charge non residents. Or do nothing! The article didn't actually say they're taking all the spaces.
Just because (Score:2)
Same reason our power company stages repair trucks in our neighborhood entrance before a major storm, itâ(TM)s a good location, and itâ(TM)s stated in the summary
Time limited parking aspect (Score:1)
Shower thought: So if autonomous cars can change parking spots every few hours to avoid exceeding timed parking limits in those areas, won't it case massive problems with parking in those areas?
Consider why "you can only park here for this amount of time at a time" rules exist. They're there to ensure that there's constant ability to find parking for those coming, essentially creating artificial churn of people and their cars in the area. But if cars can just re-park themselves in the same parking area befo
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That's unironically one of the widely-advertised benefits of self-driving vehicles: Let the vehicle park itself for you (even if it has to roam around for hours to find a parking spot), and even re-park itself to dodge time limits as needed, so you don't have to pay for private parking in congested areas. I wonder how much urban traffic 10 years from now will be self-driving vehicles searching for hours for a free parking spot (it g
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More likely solution is zone parking. Your car (identified by license plate and machine vision on entrance/exit of each zone, or by a GPS beacon within the car) may only spend a certain amount of time within the entire zone without exiting for at least a specific period of time.
This would encourage cars to act like taxis. They deliver their passengers, and then leave to park in a much less congested zone. And then get recalled by owner when it's time to leave.
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Actually it does in most places, because most cities aren't so massive as to not have low traffic zones and high traffic zones fairly close to one another.
It won't be the case in megapolices, but outside of those it will be very helpful.
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Low traffic as in people. Not cars.
I.e. places where stores are vs places where there are few to no stores.
Remember RapidShare? (Score:3)
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That's easy (Score:2)
Because you have way mo' parking spots than you need.
Do Science (Score:2)
Why not find out? Collect the data where the hotspots are, put them on a map, maybe draw the Voronoi diagram and see if there is a pattern.
Spike stripes (Score:1)
Have them towed or cut a tire... (Score:2)