That and Chamath seemingly defending open source. What a day to be alive.

>>Does Waymo benefit society enough to carry the tradeoffs?

>Absolutely.

Citation needed.

Why stop at Waymo? The entirety of your digital activity happens on private property. You should have no expectation of privacy, and your attempts at privacy should mark you as a higher risk subject. We should algorithmically police your digital life in case you start showing signs of anti-social behavior. I don't want to wait until you get your gun into a Waymo to have the cops handle you. I want you to be caught much earlier. This will make the world much safer.

There are other ways to solve safety issues, but they are harder and more expensive - civic education and a government invested in incentivizing a productive life, better law enforcement training, freely available mental health services etc.

Fortunately the Fourth Amendment has mostly established the answer for us already.

No? The Fourth Amendment only grants you protections that apply to government action. The police are allowed to accept evidence gathered voluntarily by private citizens or corporations.

Flock is bad, but fleets of cars strapped to the teeth with cameras and sensors are suddenly ok even when they call the police on you? Why? Because of the makers of the technology that powers the cars say they are safer (via datasets that we have no way to validate)?

I think there's a legitimate distinction between monitoring what's inside the car vs what's outside. Outside seems bad. Inside is probably necessary.

This is a good distinction. My main concern with Waymo is that we have no way of knowing if they stick/will stick to only monitoring the inside.

How are they supposed to drive themselves without monitoring whats going on outside the vehicle?

That’s possible to do without also sending all the captured data to police.

Well for one, so far they've only called the police on people who chose to use the service.

When we have evidence that Waymo is contracting its external cameras out to local governments and allowing abuse, then we can criticize them for it.

What do you mean? Google is legally required to share information, and does share information, when such information is requested through a whole variety of different means available to local governments. https://policies.google.com/terms/information-requests

That's the same as the police getting security footage from any random building.

The problem with Flock is that they let police hop on and look at whatever they want whenever they want. Completely different operating modes and intentions.

Also, Google and Waymo are different companies under the same parent. Google's policies are irrelevant.

Yeah good point on the policies. It makes Waymo's case worse though, because they have nothing defined publicly. They are also for-profit, and trying to deploy to more cities. The concerns are real - https://www.criminallegalnews.org/news/2025/jul/1/driverless...

"While companies like Waymo insist they require search warrants for footage, based on probable cause and judicial approval, the legal framework for accessing autonomous vehicle data remains unsettled. A 2022 analysis by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (“EFF”) noted that few states have specific laws governing law enforcement access to such data, leaving gaps in oversight. In Arizona, where Waymo operates extensively, police must typically obtain a search warrant to access footage, as required by state law for electronic records and consistent with Fourth Amendment protections. "

Only if they retain it, and I would bet they are purging it quickly as a matter of policy to avoid these kinds of situations.

Because you sign up for the service, agree to the terms, and voluntarily get into the car.

Depends on how you feel about guns. I think people who are opposed to them would agree with this, people who are in favor of guns would be alarmed by this.

> I think people who are opposed to them would agree with this, people who are in favor of guns would be alarmed by this.

Bizarrely, I think it comes out backwards. In this article, the comments are surprised that Waymo's gun detection led to someone contacting authorities - it's not over guns, but that it was "young people" with guns, which means they can't use generalizations, there have to be bespoke solutions unique to every individual, calling the police to assess on potential threats is too broad.

The gun crowd would neither use taxis broadly to carry weapons, nor do so in the manner of the "juveniles" found in the article. Generalizing, they're well-versed in the minutiae of gun transport laws and more or less anticipate law enforcement contact, whether inadvertent or from Karens.

I have an option not to use Waymo. I don't have an option not to get screwed by Flock.

Maybe we shouldn't put the whole burden of world justice on Waymo, this allowing it a complete invasion of the privacy of both the people who use it and those who don't? Guy takes a drugged up girl on the train, should we hold the train responsible for the outcome also?

Are you aware of BART Police or MTA Police? All trains have conductors who monitor passenger behavior and enforce rules/laws.

That's the key question: whose laws are Waymo enforcing? ICE and Flock's extra-constitutional policies? City ordinances? A future eco-radical government's laws?

How about things taking place outside the car?

Can Waymo mount a robotic machine gun next to the LIDAR and snipe suspected terrorists? Release tear gas? Self destruct, killing several nuns to protect s CEO?

Btw ghost guns are not all instantly illegal.

Yes? I am pretty sure they don't do algorithmic policing. Fwiw, they probably don't do any policing, but that is a different subject.

I am not against monitoring for safety - I am against deploying a sophisticated network of automated monitoring that covers all digital and soon physical aspects of my life for my "safety" by for profit companies.

I don’t think a train conductor would normally intervene if they saw someone escorting an intoxicated person.

Unfortunately taking someone somewhere to rob or assault them doesn’t look that different from taking a drunk friend to a safe place.

Public trains are covered in camera surveillance and that footage is very often used in conjunction with tracking down and prosecuting criminals. You should have no expectation of privacy on a public train.

I agree we should also add live facial recognition to train stations.

No expectation of privacy in public does not mean we should eliminate privacy from public areas or allow our government to engage in mass surveillance.

I think the risks are different on a train, which is far more public than the inside of a taxi. There are more likely to be other people and/or an operator to intervene.

the fact that this comment is getting downvoted into oblivion instead of discussed is poignant enough.

fwiw, my experience is similar. hn has not been about startups, vc funding, or anything in that space for quite a while.

to paraphrase a classic, this place is like a memory of the forum we used to love, and the memory is fading.

The "AI" spam is significantly more prevalent than the blockchain spam used to be, but HN has always had its spam waves.

Blockchain is all but dead, even the "i've rewritten this thing, it has far less features but it's IN RUST" spam has greatly reduced.

> this place is like a memory of the forum we used to love, and the memory is fading.

Well, this place (wherever you are) is like a memory of the world we used to love, and the memory is fading... Definitely true too.

You can't expect a place tightly connected to a changing world to stay the same.

while your ignorance is bliss for you, it is a punishment for the rest of us. now get in line and wait for your boarding group to be called.

does the author claim to be a bloomberg clone?