Igal Raichelgauz, the CEO of AI technology firm Autobrains, says self-driving cars lack “common sense”, after thousands of vehicles were recalled in the US when a Waymo robotaxi drove onto a flooded road and was swept away.
Raichelgauz said that manufacturers train their vehicles by “feeding examples” of road conditions, which can go wrong if something unexpected happens, says The Times.
Waymo recalled almost 3,800 of its vehicles after an incident in San Antonio, Texas, last month in which an empty robotaxi drove into a flooded road and was swept away into a creek.
A notice posted by the US Department of Transportation this week revealed that Waymo had recalled cars using its fifth and sixth-generation automated driving system. It said the software currently in use “may allow the vehicle to slow and then drive into standing water on higher speed roadways”.
In the San Antonio incident the car stopped in a flooded 40mph zone and, rather than turn around or find another route, it attempted to drive through the water at reduced speed. The vehicle was recovered downstream four days later.
Raichelgauz, whose company is building “agentic AI” technology designed for use in automated driving systems, said that cars learning by example is “not enough”.
Asked why driverless cars were still surprised by certain situations, he said: “One of the biggest gaps in autonomous driving AI today is common sense.”
Earlier this week residents on one street in Shoreditch, east London, have complained about Waymo vehicles driving down a no-through road and being forced to reverse back down the street while sounding a loud siren. In another incident in north London last month a Waymo driverless car veered into an active crime scene cordoned off by police tape.
Waymo is one of many firms, including British start-up Wayve and Lyft, hoping to have fully driverless vehicles on London streets by the end of the year. All are currently conducting tests across the capital with a safety driver behind the wheel in case any issues or “edge cases” emerge.
Robotaxi companies are using various autonomous driving systems to control their vehicles. Some rely more on sensors, detailed mapping and humans writing code; others on an AI system that learns as it goes.
Waymo said the company “provides over half a million trips every week in some of the most challenging driving environments across the US, and safety is our primary priority”.
It said the recall was issued after it “identified an area of improvement regarding untraversable flooded lanes specific to higher-speed roadways”, adding: “We are working to implement additional software safeguards and have put mitigations in place, including refining our extreme weather operations during periods of intense rain, limiting access to areas where flash flooding might occur.”
(Picture: Olga Gonzalez)
