Comment by dash2
People downvoting you may think that this is an uninteresting quibble: we may not find it very surprising that sometimes Waymo asks for human guidance, and we don't necessarily think "autonomous" is an all or nothing designator.
People downvoting you may think that this is an uninteresting quibble: we may not find it very surprising that sometimes Waymo asks for human guidance, and we don't necessarily think "autonomous" is an all or nothing designator.
Most things aren't absolutes. This is no exception. The vehicles can operate on their own the majority of the time. That is a form of autonomy, albeit incomplete.
You are subject to road signs, traffic, police directions, etc while driving. In the event of a natural disaster it seems feasible that you could end up in a situation where you don't know how you ought to proceed. So neither are you "free of external influence or control" in an absolute sense.
A human driver does not have to call a remote operator if the traffic lights are off.
This situation does not require a sophistic argument that we are not autonomous because we rely on the sun. If a child walks alone to school without asking for directions, it walks autonomously. If it has to call its parents or uses a GPS phone, it is not autonomous. This is really not that hard.
A child only knows the way to school because outside influences have previously shaped the path that they are expected to follow. They're motivated to walk there because present influences seek to enforce the necessity of accomplishing this task.
Even the mere existence of a predetermined destination (in this instance, the location of a particular school that they did not choose themselves) is influential to their behavior.
If we use the definition that you're so defensively in favor of, then it is impossible for this child to be walking to school autonomously.
Certainly. However it shouldn't be too difficult to imagine a scenario where the typical human driver would not know how to respond in a safe manner. Thus the presence of "uncertain how to respond" in a limited subset of scenarios remains consistent with the term "autonomous" as it appears in general usage.
> If it has to call its parents or uses a GPS phone, it is not autonomous.
You ought to be able to imagine plenty of scenarios where this would be the case (ie the child got lost) and yet clearly you still believe the child to qualify as autonomous. Analogously, the vehicles are not necessarily disqualified as being considered such despite being unable to independently navigate in some subset of scenarios.
If it has to call its parents or uses a GPS phone, it is not autonomous. This is really not that hard.
Obviously your point here highlights your pedantry: autonomy is not absolute. Despite being a mostly functioning and definitely autonomous human being, I sometimes have to call someone who knows better to ask for directions.
In this context, I think I prefer to use this definition from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary: "(of a vehicle) that has the technology to drive itself without a person in control"
I think it fits the state of affairs well-enough.
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/eng...
That is a sad state of affairs, I hope it does not make it into the printed edition.
The same applies to "autonomous drones", which are the most remote assisted machines imaginable.
But of course the advertising departments want to evoke an image of the Marlboro man saddling his horse rather than a GPS tracked, surveillance riddled, face scanning, remote assisted contraption.
Definition in the Oxford dictionary: "Of, pertaining to, or characterized by autonomy; self-governing, independent; free of external influence or control."
Self-driving car advertisers like Musk or Waymo just want to co-opt this term because it sounds cool. The term also deliberately hides the fact that these vehicles surveil and track you.
EDIT: It is the full definition in the printed Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (which is a large two volume publication). It is understandable that morons downvote it.