Yet another Hacker News

Learning to live with Waymos

29 points njrc 1 hour ago 56 comments

https://web.archive.org/web/20261015123002/https://www.newyo..., https://archive.li/fj7oR

danpalmer 1 hour ago | parent

https://archive.li/fj7oR

misterflibble 52 minutes ago | parent

Cheers

dang 22 minutes ago | parent

Added above. Thanks!

danpalmer 1 hour ago | parent

The thing I unexpectedly like most about using Waymo is not having a stranger inserted into your conversation.

Every time I've taken a taxi in a group, the conversation ends when we get in and the driver is suddenly a part of our conversation. It's weird to have them sit there listening to your discussion but not participating, and it would be weird for them to participate. Inevitably the conversation turns to the mundane, questions about whether it's a busy day, how often do you drive in this part of town, etc.

I got a Waymo with friends and the conversation never missed a beat as we got into the car, rode for 15 minutes, and got out.

vardalab 1 hour ago | parent

Yeah, now some future LLM from Google is a partner in your conversation, lol. "This call may be monitored or recorded for quality assurance and training purposes, and for future llm training"

danpalmer 1 hour ago | parent

They make it quite clear in Waymos that nothing/no one is listening until you call them or they have a safety need to interrupt. I've never experienced that, but from those I've spoken to that have, apparently it's very immediately obvious, as it should be, and rare.

yardstick 1 hour ago | parent

Just wait until someone installs a listening device somewhere in the cab. Doesn’t need to be Waymo doing the listening. Target Waymos that operate around financially important areas like tech and finance companies and profit.

smegma2 57 minutes ago | parent

That can be done in any cab. Heck a driver would have a much easier time covertly recording you.

taneq 52 minutes ago | parent

The driver might object to a passenger bugging their car, though.

yardstick 50 minutes ago | parent

True. But less likely to be able to deploy at scale. Waymo cleaners I’m guessing will be far less likely than drivers to care about keeping their cab super clean and noticing these things.

Plus as per this article, the rider is way less likely to talk important business in front of the driver - hence Waymo being ideal.

solyin 50 minutes ago | parent

They do record video though, so you'd have to figure out a way to install it such that you aren't suspected of installing it. Plus how do you get it back? You could put in something with a cell modem, but then how do you power it more. There are USB ports tho, so you could ride in the front seat and make it look like a charging cable or battery that you just forgot, but really it's a listening device with a cell modem. For all that effort, you'd want some serious ROI and youd want to do some math on the chances you get something actionable that isn't going to get you investigated by the SEC anyway, and then further, you can't do it a bunch of times because that's really how you get caught. Nah, better to actually get employed by a company, and the higher up you go, the bigger the crimes you can commit!

Sounds like something out of Billions.

taneq 53 minutes ago | parent

They also made it quite clear that their AI speaker thingy’s microphone was physically disconnected when the switch was off. Turned out the switch only physically disconnected the ‘mic active’ LED.

snailmailman 52 minutes ago | parent

It’s not clear the circumstances that they do record and monitor, but they definitely do monitor sometimes. They’ve reported crimes that happen in the Waymos, like this incident where they reported some teenagers that had an illegal firearm: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49672549

That same story mentions another instance where some kids had alcohol and toy guns. So maybe there is AI that detects firearms? And then a human intervenes? Its not very clear.

wilg 46 minutes ago | parent

They always have video, but audio until theres some kind of emergency situation and they call you.

drivers99 46 minutes ago | parent

The conversation was about audio recording (conversation). That was determinable by video, not audio.

voxic11 33 minutes ago | parent

recording conversations can be eavesdropping very easily in all party consent states but there aren't generally laws against secretly video recording people (besides in specific intimate situations like bathrooms).

kjs3 49 minutes ago | parent

Yes...given the spotless record of these sorts of companies in zealously guarding our privacy it would be unthinkable that Waymos is listening in to our conversations. /s

ivantop 44 minutes ago | parent

Seriously.. how are people so gullible? This is how it always starts…

taneq 54 minutes ago | parent

If you be extra polite fire to this, does that makes it Google’s Basilisk?

Then again I recently told a friend of mine to stop saying mean things about China because it might offend my car, soooo…

wilg 1 hour ago | parent

This also makes it a lot nicer to take a call or FaceTime.

danpalmer 1 hour ago | parent

Absolutely! Or even just be alone with your thoughts.

I always felt weird alone in a taxi – having someone serve you that directly in that way, particularly if you're sitting in the back seat, just feels a little uncomfortable. But in a Waymo it's just me.

tziporahdagwood 1 hour ago | parent

They’re surely not recording your conversation. Today’s convenience is the soil of tomorrow’s turmoil.

PessimalDecimal 39 minutes ago | parent

Speak truth to the powers that be at Big Convenience!

ryandrake 56 minutes ago | parent

My last couple of human driven rideshares, I didn’t have to worry about that because the driver was engrossed in his own phone conversation the whole ride. Not sure what’s worse.

eclipticplane 54 minutes ago | parent

My only question on interactions like this: who the heck is on the other side of these calls, and are they on the phone 24-7?!

simonw 40 minutes ago | parent

There was an interesting piece in the Guardian about that recently: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/sep/30/people-are-aski...

> For anyone of an immigrant background, the question of who they are talking to is absolutely no mystery. They are talking to us; their siblings, parents, cousins and friends. Sometimes the person on the end of the line is back home, other times they are in a western city also navigating the dislocations of immigrant life. The long phone call is a regular feature of diaspora lives, and even more so for those employed in long, solitary work such as cab driving.

therein 5 minutes ago | parent

It is true and accurate but such a romantic embellishment.

NegativeLatency 54 minutes ago | parent

Public transit works like this too

echelon 51 minutes ago | parent

I want hyper personal transport.

I want high reliability driverless services we can rent for our own cars.

I want to fall asleep in the car with my family and dogs and wake up on the beach or in the mountains.

That'll be peak Americana.

pj_mukh 48 minutes ago | parent

Yea do what you want outside cities. Within cities, cars are extremely space inefficient.

Signed, a certified Waymo lover.

binlog 43 minutes ago | parent

Have you used public transit in San Francisco?

danpalmer 8 minutes ago | parent

It's a downside of public transport too. Possibly my reason for being sensitive to this though is that I almost exclusively use public transport, getting a taxi is relatively rare for me, and I don't own a car.

dboreham 48 minutes ago | parent

Yes the "lack of a human" is a feature. That said I've learned many things from talking to Uber drivers in various parts of the world (and in the US from Uber drivers from various parts of the world) so YMMV.

tdhz77 42 minutes ago | parent

Waymo has been ahead of the competition for a long time. It’s why Elon musk donates to GOP. He can’t win and jump through regulatory hurdles. He is and always has been so far behind the curve he is going even anything even if it’s criminal. (Which it is). Not shocking the first thing DOGE did was go after self driving regulatory bodies investigating his marketing terms and deadly crashes.

7174n6 1 hour ago | parent

I used Waymo several times while in Nashville this summer. Fantastic experience. I'll choose Waymo over a human-driven vehicle everytime I have the choice.

solyin 1 hour ago | parent

I don't use Waymo anymore because it has decided that my street is busy (it isn't) and so picks up at the parking lot across the street from me instead. Which is disappointing. (This is despite filing multiple feedback reports for the issue.)

dboreham 42 minutes ago | parent

A family member lives on a street where a Waymo likes to park while waiting on the next ride. Initially we joked that "the Waymo is taking a cigarette break" but seeing it there led to the family using them quite often. It would never let us just walk down to its cigarette spot though -- always needed to stub out its light then drive down a narrow back alley behind the building where nobody would suspect it would decide to do its pickup.

solyin 41 minutes ago | parent

how well does it handle that back alley if there's another car or other obstruction there?

ryukoposting 57 minutes ago | parent

It continues to bewilder me how wildly different some people's experiences with Waymo are than mine.

My very first time getting a Waymo, as soon as it got going it immediately tried to make a left turn out of a right lane. Then it decided to go 15mph down a 3-lane wide road with a 45mph speed limit for several miles. No warning beeps or anything, it just decided to do that for some reason.

I waited a few months before trying it again. This time I took it to the airport. It worked great... until it got to the airport and caused a traffic jam because it couldn't figure out how to complete a lane change in traffic. Embarrassing, for me and the car.

Waymo is bound to capture the imaginations of people who haven't seen these things before. They certainly made me smile the first time I saw one at the beginning of this year. But god help you if you actually use one.

dboreham 45 minutes ago | parent

Balancing data set: I've been in many Waymo in Los Angeles and never had them do anything like this. Since you mentioned going to the airport presumably this was in Phoenix or San Antonio? Seems like the traffic on those places would be sub-LA level of difficult to navigate.

ryukoposting 37 minutes ago | parent

San Jose. The 15mph incident was mid-day, broad daylight, hardly any traffic at all. Airport incident was at 3 AM at SJC.

kenhwang 33 minutes ago | parent

The ones in LA just get stuck behind things because LA loves its park anywhere you want anarchy.

But also the Waymos use alleys, driveways, and private parking lots that they're really not supposed to.

Always a bit embarrassing when the Waymo decides to use a space that's not meant for public use for pickup/dropoffs. One time, mine waited for me in/blocking a fast food drive-thru lane.

cyberrock 5 minutes ago | parent

In LA they make very subtle traffic infractions. For example, turning right onto the left lane of a two-lane road. But a third of human drivers probably don't know that it's not allowed and another third intentionally violate it.

ivantop 36 minutes ago | parent

On my commute home there is always a street that has 5-6 Waymos trying to turn left from the middle lane because they could not successfully change lanes. Blocks traffic every single day without fail. Probably been like this for 5-6 months.

michelsedgh 36 minutes ago | parent

In Austin, I've never been in one but I constantly see them making weird decisions and once, it was a red on left turn a waymo ahead of me and me behind it the turn left turned green it didnt move light turned red, next time it turned green it moved. I really think they're safe cause they have learned to do what others do in front of them and when they have to make their own decisions everything falls apart. I do hope it gets better a little faster.

ryukoposting 30 minutes ago | parent

This approximately lines up with my experiences with them in SV. Most of the time they drive so conservatively as to be a nuisance to surrounding traffic, and then occasionally one turns left from the wrong lane. Or makes an obviously dumb u-turn or something.

blululu 54 minutes ago | parent

I feel like the article is trying really hard to be cynical about one of the few technologies that is just totally an improvement in my life. I don't even really ride cabs very often (basically the airport is the only place and Waymos don't go there). But I do bike and bus into work and frankly the Waymos are just considerate to bicycles and pedestrians. I never have a sense of danger in the crosswalk with them. No risk of getting cut off. None of the borderline psychotic behavior I have personally seen from motorists. The author of the piece even admits that she totaled a car. Which is not exactly uncommon since cars are dangerous. The upsides just so heavily outweigh the bad here.

bunderbunder 26 minutes ago | parent

Interesting. We don't have Waymo in my city, but we sure do have a lot of Uber drivers who can be relied upon to unleash a fusillade of angry honking when the car in front of them chooses obey traffic laws regarding pedestrians in the crosswalk.

alskdfqlkj 7 minutes ago | parent

>I feel like the article is trying really hard to be cynical

I don't feel this way at all. I think you are reading it through the lens of your own personal feelings about Waymo.

I think the article is trying really hard to present a mix of positives and negatives, a "balanced" perspective. Things like talking about how some women feel safer without having to worry about a driver (positive), yet sharing a story of a woman who felt less safe from her fellow passenger because there was no driver (negative). Mentioning the story of the cat that was killed in SF (negative), but also mentioning that human drivers kill a great deal of cats too (positive, in a sense). And so on.

ex-aws-dude 51 minutes ago | parent

I love taking Waymo but you have to compare the travel times.

Sometimes it will be like 45 minutes to go somewhere 15 min away because it won’t take any highways.

dozerly 49 minutes ago | parent

Waymo’s feel so so so much safer when walking and biking around. They actually give you priority.

jeffbee 41 minutes ago | parent

I am now so Waymo-pilled that if all crossing directions are oncoming Waymos I will simply cross between them, regardless of their green signals. Works in SF; may not apply in your locale.

zachwdc 48 minutes ago | parent

>Human drivers make human mistakes, and robot drivers make robot ones.

This sums up a lot of what life is like these days alongside AI.

binlog 47 minutes ago | parent

You can tell that this piece is written by someone who visited San Francisco to sit in a Waymo and then extrapolated how weird it must be for people who see them every day. In reality after the initial shock wears off these cars are just a normal, boring part of the road. Seeing them drive around town is the same as seeing any other kind of taxi. I find that the strongest opinions about Waymos come from people who live in cities where they don't operate.

dkga 38 minutes ago | parent

Visited Atlanta last July. First time in Waymos. Now I can’t wait for this to become a reality in Brasília too, where I live.