Yahoo News Angry locals attack self-driving cars with rocks and knives
Locals in an area which has become a test-bed for self-driving cars are fighting back – attacking the robotic cars with rocks and knives and even forcing vehicles off the road.
Phoenix, Arizona has seen more than 20 incidents where people have attacked self-driving Waymo vans – a spin-off of Google’s self-driving car project.
A report by the New York Times found that police in Arizona have documented cases including tyre-slashing, and a case where a man pointed a gun at a Waymo van.
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Other locals have been seen screaming at the vehicles or chasing them – with a Jeep running six Waymo vans off the road.
Experts have suggested that some of the attacks may be linked with the impact of the vehicles on jobs.
Douglas Rushkoff, a media theorist at City University of New York said, There’s a growing sense that the giant corporations honing driverless technologies do not have our best interests at heart.
‘Just think about the humans inside these vehicles, who are essentially training the artificial intelligence that will replace them.’
