Citizens In AZ Attacking Self-Driving Cars

Autonomous vehicles being tested in Chandler, AZ, are being threatened, and sometimes attacked by citizens wielding weapons. Protesters have various axes to grind, one of them, according to sources in this New York Times article, that autonomous vehicles and AI more generally are going to take people’s jobs. One media expert suggests these vehicles are being seen as the robotic version of scabs in the context of a union struggle. The fact that in the course of testing a pedestrian has been killed surely had an effect on perceptions, no matter what the math might say about odds and the relative safety of human vs autonomous vehicles. Cars being tested in Chandler have been damaged, and on-board back-up drivers have been threatened, but the more common scenario is a kind of low-tech harassment where people stand in the way of vehicles, forcing them to take evasive action or come to a halt. One Chandler resident, in what sounds like a 21st century variation on the old hot-rodders game of chicken, reportedly forced a Waymo van to come to a sudden stop by taking aim for it head-on.