Although Australian legislation doesn’t allow a vehicle to operate without a driver behind the wheel, some US jurisdictions have already legalised driverless cars – and with that comes the prospect of an AI-driven vehicle being pulled over by police.
In this video taken on April 16 in Phoenix, Arizona, you can see the driverless car belonging to Google’s self-driving car division, Waymo, trying its best to react to the hand signals of the police officer.
The vehicle got confused due to a public parade and tried to go around the blocked road but ended up coming head on to the front of the event and causing traffic chaos.
As you can see in the video, the vehicle (which appears to be a Jaguar I-Pace) is being told by the police officer to get out of the way and the passenger, Johnny Romano, is heard speaking back to the officer.
“Sir we cannot move, we are sorry, this car won’t let us move. We are not driving!” Romano is heard saying.
According to the passengers, the vehicle figured out it was being instructed by law enforcement and made a turn to get out of the way in less than 90 seconds, with Waymo support calling the vehicle to make sure it did as it was told.
Waymo said in a public statement that its driverless vehicles use machine learning algorithms to respond to hand signals and constructions signs. Though, we do have to wonder how artificial intelligence in vehicles can tell a real police officer from a bad actor trying to force a vehicle to pull over?
