“A scene from a science fiction thriller”: this is how Mike Johns, entrepreneur from Los Angeles, described his experience aboard a Waymo robo-taxi in Phoenix (United States). On his way to Sky Harbor Airport on Monday, his autonomous vehicle suddenly began to loop around a parking lot, as reported by The Guardian.
The man posted a video of the incident on social media. “I can’t get out of the car. Was this hacked? What’s happening?” he asked a Waymo representative without even knowing if it was a human or an artificial intelligence.
The vehicle circled the parking lot several times before the problem was resolved, thanks to technical intervention. Fortunately, the customer was able to get his flight on time, and the company reimbursed him for the trip.
Waymo then explained in a press release that the problem came from a software “loop”, quickly corrected with an update. The main person, who described himself as a futurist, suggested to ABC that the configuration of the airport could have disrupted the car.
-Despite his misfortune, Mike remains convinced that the future lies in autonomous vehicles. He assured that he will continue to use driverless cars: “I feel like this is the direction the world is going, so we might as well get there first.” And the entrepreneur added: “There are just some problems that need stitches.”
Waymo, for its part, recalled that its vehicles have provided millions of trips in complete safety, in several cities in the United States such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix. However, this is not the company’s first incident. In June 2023, one of Waymo’s cars killed a dog, according to another Guardian article, and a cyclist was injured in February 2024, says Reuters.
