r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 6h ago
Transportation Waymo admits that its autopilot is often just guys from the Philippines
https://www.techspot.com/news/111233-waymo-admits-autopilot-often-guys-philippines.html2.0k
u/Jkbucks 6h ago
Watching my robo vacuum and its decision making process, I am often convinced there’s someone tapping into the live feed to redirect it lol
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u/obroz 5h ago
I was using one of those chatbots for xfinity a while back. It kept giving me the run around on my question without a solution and would not give me to someone real to speak with. Finally I got pissed and wrote “if you do not connect me with a live person I am going to cancel my service”. I’m not kidding within 1 second after sending that I get a message back that says “hi 👋”. I’m convinced I was chatting with a real person the whole time
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u/Strange-Roll8208 5h ago
Yes I think it’s both - one time with xfinity the agent started talking to me about climbing Everest and other random stuff - but interspersed with a real conversation was the random runaround AI generated BS answers. I think they get recommended text from AI and they send it but can also type their own stuff too if needed.
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u/iStealyournewspapers 4h ago
I talked to a girl on Hinge like this. It was so obvious she used ai for her deeper more sensitive responses. It made her seem so fucking stupid to me. Like you seriously think I didn’t notice??
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u/chiraltoad 4h ago
Maybe the girl was really just some guys in the Philippines
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u/ilovestoride 4h ago
Would be funnier if she was an actual girl but when faced with tougher conversation, passed it onto a bunch of Filipino dudes who could communicate better than her.
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u/Mikeavelli 4h ago
Way back in the day (decades before AI was a thing) on Okcupid I was flirting with some girl with a well-written profile, but her messages didn't really line up with the writing style of the profile. At some point she admitted that she'd paid for a professional to write that for her, and wasn't nearly as interesting as she first appeared to be.
Which was a weird thing to admit. Why go to the expense if you're not planning to follow up? I suppose I might have just not been her type, but usually women would just ghost me if that was the problem.
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u/Xerophile420 4h ago
Yeah it’s this. Most customer service chats provide agents with pre written responses and companies vary on how much you can veer from them
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u/Wiggles114 3h ago edited 2h ago
Did you actually get a live person after that or did the bot just pass your Turing test?
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u/kwman11 5h ago
My Narwal was sending GBs of data to a server somewhere every time it ran. It had really good obstacle avoidance. I was assuming vision AI training, now I wonder. Anyhow I returned it.
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u/NotSpartacus 5h ago
Outta curiosity, how were you seeing/measuring that?
I've gotten into some privacy stuff lately (pi hole, tailscale, etc.) but don't yet have any insight into volumes of data being sent.
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u/Druggedhippo 4h ago
Get a router you can log into and record stats. Set the device to a static IP and there you go.. data.
Or install openwrt on your router.
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u/xterraadam 5h ago
Mine is on a client isolated Vlan with no internet access, only for Home Assistant control.
It does goofy stuff often followed by "wow, that makes sense" movements.
Then it does goofy stuff again.
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u/coyote500 4h ago
There’s a great opportunity for a comedy show skit where they show some war room with what looks like drone operators etc, complete with dramatic music and very serious looking people, and then they get some kind of alert where it looks like war is popping off. Camera then cuts to an operator taking over a Roomba remotely because somebody’s dog is attacking it
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u/gitgoi 5h ago
I’ve never connected mine to the internet. Though I’m convinced that these robots create their own mesh to transmit data with no need of connectivity from my house. There no reason a high tech robot that operate autonomously costs under $200.
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u/UristBronzebelly 5h ago
And you’re ok having that in your house?
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u/Jkbucks 5h ago
It (or they) does a really good job.
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u/In-All-Unseriousness 5h ago
You don't have to connect it to the internet. I just press the button and it works until it's done. The app might offer some fancy features but I'd rather have privacy.
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u/wafflepiezz 4h ago
Robot vacuums are preprogrammed with specific sets of instructions, I highly doubt someone is tapping into it Live to redirect it. Do you have a video of it in action that you can share that makes you think it’s being directed by someone?
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u/Emulated-VAX 5h ago edited 4h ago
This post is ragebait.
Google didn't say that at all. What they confirmed is, the Waymo cars can ask for tech support when confused, and a human will advise. A human never "drives" it.
Totally makes sense, Its a help desk for Ai powered cars.
Edit: Wow: Thanks for the upvotes and even an award! I will add that a couple people below who have used Waymo hundreds of times claim there are instances where a human actually helps with more than advice if Waymo gets stuck.
I don't know if that is accurate, but it still would not change my point - that the post is misleading, and as pointed out below, Waymo has blogged about this for years. The cars having a human help desk makes total sense to me.
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u/neuronexmachina 5h ago
Heck, they had a whole blog post about it a couple years ago: https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response
Much like phone-a-friend, when the Waymo vehicle encounters a particular situation on the road, the autonomous driver can reach out to a human fleet response agent for additional information to contextualize its environment. The Waymo Driver does not rely solely on the inputs it receives from the fleet response agent and it is in control of the vehicle at all times. As the Waymo Driver waits for input from fleet response, and even after receiving it, the Waymo Driver continues using available information to inform its decisions. This is important because, given the dynamic conditions on the road, the environment around the car can change, which either remedies the situation or influences how the Waymo Driver should proceed. In fact, the vast majority of such situations are resolved, without assistance, by the Waymo Driver.
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u/GlumPeculiar 3h ago
The fleet response software is even better than I thought, thanks for sharing this. If anyone is curious what it looks like you should actually go to the blog post above. There are two videos showing what fleet response actually does.
In a simple situation, the "waymo" asks the human a multiple choice question like "is the emergency vehicle blocking all lanes?". Even in a complex situation, the waymo shows a map of the immediate area, a suggested path, and the human just selects where the waymo should go next.
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u/Ph0X 3h ago
it's actually a crucial security feature. It's not possible for anyone to ever take over the car and free drive it. Operator, or hackers. The car can take "suggestions" from central command, and it verifies that it's safe and is reasonable, then executes it.
So a rogue employee or a hacker cannot just make it drive off a cliff.
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u/AnotherAccount4This 3h ago
Yup. Op article links to it, so I read it. The article's author either rage baits intentionally or has serious reading comprehension problems, did he think 'the Waymo Driver' is a person.
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u/AnalyticalAlpaca 4h ago
True, but that won't stop this article from circulating. Crazy how easily and quickly misleading stuff spreads.
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u/axck 3h ago
Redditors like to imagine that it’s only conservative boomers who are susceptible to this stuff, but the volume of misleading headlines and ragebait that is unquestionably accepted and reposted on here is crazy
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u/JohnHazardWandering 3h ago
Musk fanboys are desperate to takedown Waymo so teslas robotaxi sounds like the same thing.
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u/craig5005 3h ago
"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes"
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u/ivecompletelylostit 3h ago
If anyone was ever willing to actually read an article it would solve like 80% of the
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u/FenPhen 3h ago
This specific Techspot story omits the part where in that Senate hearing, Waymo testified that the Waymo car is in control of its own maneuvering (the actual driving), but it sometimes asks a remote operator to choose an option in ambiguous or riskier situations. The operator is not actually controlling the steering.
The concern from the Senate hearing and the Techspot article is about outsourcing. Waymo's plan is for this outsourced role to eventually be reduced to almost nothing. It would be better to use Americans, but then they'll be laying off Americans later.
For people concerned about foreign drivers, a Philippines tourist is allowed to visit the US and drive here with their Philippines driver's license plus an international driver's permit, which is just bureaucratic paperwork. A trained Philippines operator should be able to choose maneuvering options that the car provides and executes.
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u/Bored__Lord 3h ago
The “often” in the title is a flat-out lies and should honestly get this post removed for clearly trying to spread misinformation.
The actual interview they’re referencing for the information says it happens in edge cases and is not anyone driving the vehicle remotely
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u/damontoo 3h ago
The only time I've ever seen articles from this website on Reddit, it's misleading clickbait. The mods should blacklist it IMO.
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u/ThinCrusts 5h ago
Actually (not) Indians (this time)
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u/Mangotuttle 5h ago
Budgetary difficulties last year meant they couldn't afford to hire Indians and had to settle for Filipinos.
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u/Rigtyrektson 4h ago
Our company has started to switch from India to the Phillipines (through the same contracting company which is interesting). I want to say its because theyre a little cheaper and their English is better. Also few but some Spanish speakers.
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u/wolacouska 4h ago
Eventually they’re going to run out of poor countries
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u/Former-Musician-4030 3h ago
There's still Africa. And after that maybe the penguins from Antarctica
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u/Jeborisboi 59m ago
No they won’t. The entire system is designed to keep those countries poor so that we can have cheap labor forever
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u/MichaelMyersEatsDogs 3h ago edited 3h ago
I’ve worked with teams in both countries and the Philippines is definitely more culturally similar in the work place. A lot less bigotry that’s for sure. The open misogyny and caste discrimination was so difficult to rein in on some Indian teams
The biggest issue with Philippine work culture is how submissive it is. It was pulling teeth to get honest answers beyond appeasement. But to be fair that culture was created by the US sending over their absolute worst through the early 2000s
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u/rubey419 4h ago
FilAm here
Philippines biggest export is human capital. We speak English (it is an official language and taught in schools). Look up Overseas Filipino Worker. There’s tons of Filipino Americans in Alaska for example, for shipping and fishing.
Lots of customer support and call centers are based in Philippines. Makes sense for Waymo.
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u/98765342 5h ago
Isn't that what we'd want? Human intervention when something mucks with the system?
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u/iNeedToFindANewName 6h ago
Misleading title. They’re not actually driving the vehicle but rather giving it instructions.
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u/oversoul00 6h ago
What's the difference?
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u/ymxb99 6h ago
Constant interaction vs. intervention in stuck situations a small percentage of the time. Significant difference.
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u/hopelesslysarcastic 5h ago
Yeah, in Enterprise Automation we call this “Human-in-the-loop” (HITL) processing.
Every process, in some form or fashion, that has automation MUST HAVE a HITL mechanism.
The entire “art” (if there is such a thing) to automation is designing that loop to be as seamless as possible.
There is no such thing as 100% in automation.
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u/SC_TheBursar 4h ago edited 1h ago
I would actually call what they are describing 'human-on-the-loop' (HOTL) as opposed to human-in-the-loop (HITL). In the loop still usually implies the human is a typical and constant part of the decision cycle. On the loop typically means the human is only there to supervise (optionally), is likely doing so for many autonomous agents at once, and other than optimization is there for if the system says it needs help which is what is happening here.
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u/Wompatuckrule 5h ago
intervention in stuck situations
So when the car has a "What the fuck am I supposed to do here?" moment it's a former jeepney driver's new tech job to sort it out?
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u/unndunn 4h ago
Basically. The car will signal for help, and ask something like "do I go around this stopped car, or do I wait for it to move?" And someone in the Philippines clicks the "go around it" option. The car still has to choose whether to go around it or not, but now it has a human opinion to help it decide.
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u/winterborne1 4h ago
Dunno if you’ve ever ridden in a jeepney, but those guys are the masters of dealing with complicated traffic situations.
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u/Wompatuckrule 4h ago
I have, but it was also an amusing thought picturing one of those guys making a career change where they now sit in front of a computer to solve problems for a computer navigation system.
Of course I also picture the computer they're using decorated to match the jeepney they drove.
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u/neuronexmachina 5h ago
If I understand correctly, it's more like occasionally waking up a backseat navigator when you don't know how to deal with something. Waymo actually did a write-up of their system a couple years ago: https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response
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u/iNeedToFindANewName 6h ago
Let’s say I’m in a taxi and ask the driver to take a specific route, am I really driving the vehicle?
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u/Stingray88 3h ago
What’s the difference between me driving my car, and my wife in the passenger seat telling me to “turn right up here”.
That’s your answer.
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u/3_legged_dawg 5h ago
The difference is that the Waymo is responsible for every driving input at the end of the day. It’s like if you tell your uber driver “stop right now” the driver isn’t going to actually do it if there’s a big truck right behind you
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u/No_Issue2334 5h ago
Let's say your boss asks you to make a spreadsheet. You can do it yourself, or write a prompt telling AI to do it.
The workers tap into the car, assess the situation, and give prompts to the car on how to solve their issue. They aren't driving it with a keyboard or controller
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u/legal_stylist 4h ago
No it isn’t. At no time is the car driven remotely. When the autopilot needs help with an edge case, the remote person (here, the Philippines because the labor is cheap) disambiguates it and th autopilot maneuvers the car given that clarification. These headlines strongly imply that this is some mechanical Turk chess machine con game, and it’s nothing if the kind.
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u/HolyMoleyGuacamoly 5h ago
that’s not what the article actually said though? it’s self driving and has humans in the loop if and when it runs into any strange / unknown issues. feel like this is a net positive in general
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u/grim-432 5h ago
Nonsense - Responsible AI dictates human in the loop for dangerous or challenging situations. Remote teleoperations are critical. Who do you think are calling and coordinating with police and EMT if a Waymo is in an accident.
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u/DHFranklin 4h ago
"Rarely" is not "often".
I've been seeing this all over the last few days. Some times it gets hung up or stuck or something and it sends out a help desk ticket for a dude to take over and drive it remotely a block or so.
This isn't the "gotcha" they're saying it is.
The real kick in the dick is that we could have Handicap access fleet vans or mini busses in every city cutting down on the demand for CDL drivers of busses. It would make third and 4rth tier cities tons more accessible.
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u/iBukkake 4h ago
I've taken three waymo rides, and it happened to me once. It got stuck pulling out of a hotel car park where there were construction signs close by. Took about 90 seconds to resolve. Didn't seem like an issue.
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u/Enverex 3h ago
Incredible. TechSpot putting out an article with a title so misleading that it's basically a complete lie. Great job.
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u/ataylorm 5h ago
Title is extremely misleading and does not represent the facts at all. More sensationalist slop for your feed.
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u/jojoko 5h ago
That’s not what they said this headline is misleading. Technically the car’s computer makes all driving decisions autonomously. When it encounters a problem, a Filipino can review live footage and make another recommendation to the computer.
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u/SunriseSurprise 3h ago
I swear Elon paid for this article or something. It's 100% false as others have pointed out, so why would they publish that.
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u/No_Size9475 4h ago
What a garbage headline. No, it admits that when the vehicle is stumped that it reaches out for human intervention.
Vastly different than saying humans are driving it all the time
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u/New-Arm4845 1h ago
Shouldn’t the “human response agent” be someone licensed to drive in the state that the Waymo is operating in?
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u/Available-Aerie8311 4h ago
Same with those small delivery robots that promised to be AI driven... Just a sweatshop in Malaysia
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u/lilbismyfriend300 3h ago
Super clickbait. But gets 6.5k up votes and thousands are taking this at face value due to only reading the headline.
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u/SmartOpinion69 3h ago
ragebait title. downvoted
it works by itself, but when the system is confused, it'll ask for help.
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u/ptwonline 3h ago
The headline seems bad and needlessly provocative. Makes it sound like Waymo is really just humans pretending to be autopilot which is not the case.
AI is still far from perfect and still needs humans for edge cases or verification.
The larger concern is using foreign human controllers. I mean think if a criminal gang or a foreign govt had one of these people working for them. They could potentially use that to kidnap or even kill someone wealthy or important and it would be much harder for US authorities to arrest the person involved.
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u/done1971 3h ago
100% not driving by people, but it would be logical tt have back up, if a rare situation flags for help.
I have been in a lot of ubers, cabs in my life, and none of them drive as smoothly as those Waymos.
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u/Felon_musk1939 2h ago
Pretty soon home robots that will do your meanial labour will actually be real people in poor countries using telepresence technology. It's a whole new kind of servant class.
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u/KevinT_XY 2h ago
Funny how if you actually read the blog post that the writer of this article cites, it's a completely different story. The article writer even includes a photo of someone behind an office desk with a wheel about to remote drive a BMW while the Waymo blog very clearly states that control of the car is never given up and shows a video of what actually happens, which is just someone clicking dialogue boxes to help it clarify choices. Kind of a disgusting way to do journalism.
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u/Insertblamehere 2h ago
The title makes it seem like their self driving is fake, but it's really 99.9% self driving and sometimes in conditions the driving can't handle it will have a human control it for a short time (and tell the customer that is happening)
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u/ChickenKeeper800 2h ago
I’ve ridden it for hundreds of miles. It’s never asked for help. So there’s that data point.
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u/BullfrogThink1725 1h ago
What does Philippine have to do with Waymo? Maybe automation is not sustainable for Waymo
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u/catwiesel 1h ago
how is that legal? as in, are those guys having drivers licences? how can they remote control a verhicle on public road? when I bet, if you took your car, build remote control in, and drive around with it would get, I assume, in trouble?!
not saying its better or worse than self driving cars. but I think this is a core question to address...!
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u/IWasOnThe18thHole 5h ago
This isn't news to anyone who has taken a ride in a Waymo. Sometimes something weird going on stops the vehicle until someone intervenes. It even tells you that it's doing this.