Even After $100 Billion, Self-Driving Cars Are Going Nowhere

T-Shirt with Stop Sign can possibly make driverless cars stop

(Changed the title b/c it was needlessly confusing)

Justin Banner

It is sort of funny that the Waymos can be fooled by such a simple “trick,” but we’re also talking about something that is programmed to recognize the construction sign. While it seems dumb on the surface, it also means that the Waymo driverless system is working mostly as intended—it's seeing a seemingly temporary stop sign (we think a guy wearing a stop sign is technically temporary, as he isn't rooted into the earth with a signpost) and stopping. It does beat the alternative, like that self-driving Cruise vehicle that ran from the cops and Tesla’s Full Self Driving (FSD)—that really isn’t self-driving at all—that runs into curbs and crashes into emergency vehicles. Now, it stands to reason if the Waymo can be tricked by fake stop signs, it could potentially be tricked into, say, exceeding local speed limits by a T-shirt with a higher number on it—if, you know, Waymo and other testers didn't limit their vehicles' top speeds regardless of signage—we'll leave you with one more kernel of knowledge from jasonbcarr, conveyed in the text from misterphx: “Don’t use this magic trick for evil, Stay safe out there, kids!”