During the period in which Uber operated self-driving cars in California without a permit, a bystander observed an Uber vehicle run a red light without stopping. Uber initially claimed the incident was human error. But the self-driving car was in fact driving itself, according to two Uber employees and based on Uber documents viewed by the New York Times.
Refused to obtain California DMV permit for driverless testing
In December 2016, Uber began testing self-driving cars in California. But it failed to obtain a $150 permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles — not a clerical error, but instead an affirmative decision not to obtain such a permit because, Uber leaders claimed, their vehicles did not require such a permit. Thus Uber launched its self-driving pilot without notifying state regulators.
The Verge summarizes:
“In their minds, they really thought they weren’t autonomous,” Jessica Gonzalez, assistant deputy director of public affairs at the DMV, told The Verge. “But we decide what’s autonomous. And under our regulations, it was.”
The core of the disagreement was whether Uber’s vehicles constituted “autonomous vehicle” under California law. Uber claimed that its cars required a human being in the driver’s seat, hence were not autonomous. But California law defined autonomous based on technology (“any vehicle equipped with technology that has the capability of operating or driving the vehicle without the active physical control or monitoring of a natural person”, emphasis added), not just usage.
Contrary to Anthony Levandowski’s email to regulators that “We don’t do AV testing,” The Verge also reported evidence that the Uber vehicles were in fact used in autonomous mode. For one, The Verge re ports its staff riding in the back seat of one of Uber’s self-driving SUVs in San Francisco prior to the public launch in December. The Verge also reports that its reporters sat behind the driver’s seat while the vehicle drove itself. The Verge explains:
In both cases, the vehicle drove itself for long stretches of the trip, deftly handling intersections, bridges, and pedestrians without human intervention. There were times when a chime would sound, signaling the driver to take control. But other than that, the car was capable of operating “without the physical control or monitoring of a natural person,” as stipulated under the law.
The idea behind these public demonstrations was to prove that Uber’s self-driving vehicles were capable of handling dense urban environments, in anticipation of one day being capable of operating without a steering wheel, pedals, or even a human in the driver’s seat.
After the dispute became public, Uber removed its vehicles from California and began testing in Arizona instead.
Raided CMU’s robotics department
Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped (p. 228) that CMU was “furious” when Uber raided its robotics department — taking forty engineers into Uber’s research team.
Otto was a sham to transfer employees and know-how from Google
Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped (p. 228) indicates that the transition of Anthony Levandowski and other colleagues at Google’s self-driving program, from Google to Otto, was a sham designed to streamline their transition to Uber. He explains that Levandowski created Otto “as if he were interested in pursuing his own trucking startup” (emphasis added). Otto’s discussion with venture capitalists were, Isaac says, “mostly for appearance’s sake.” Uber’s acquisition of Otto was, Isaac says, effectively preordained.
Levandowski’s colleagues touted “safety third”
Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped (p. 226) reports that colleagues of Anthony Levandowski made stickers touting “Safety Third” — indicating that safety was not a top priority for self-driving truck company Otto or its founder.
Denied permission to film an autonomous vehicle on a public road, Levandowski did so anyway
Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped (p. 193) reports that Anthony Levandowski, then working at the Otto autonomous truck startup he founded, sought permission from the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles to video record a vehicle test on a public road. When the request was denied, Levandowski did so anyway.
Levandowski hired a lobbyist for autonomous vehicles without safety drivers
Then working at Google, Anthony Levandowski hired a lobbyist in Nevada to advocate for a law that allowed autonomous vehicles to operate without backup/safety drivers. Google didn’t know about this, and this was contrary to Google’s careful approach.
Source: Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped (p. 143)
Levandowski secretly sold then-employer Google equipment from his own company
Then working at Google, Anthony Levandowski had a startup on the side, 510 Systems. Without Google knowing, Levandowski and 510 sold Google technology for Google’s street-mapping project — using a middle-man so Google wouldn’t know who the seller was.
Source: Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped (p. 141)
Uber “software bug” led self-driving car to hit pedestrian
Uber researched the March 2018 incident in which an Uber self-driving vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona. Uber found that the vehicle’s onboard sensors did in fact detect the woman in the vehicle’s path, but the vehicle’s software incorrectly decided shew as a “false positive” and that the car did not need to stop for her.
Experts on self-driving car technologies said a tradeoff is required, between smooth rides and jerky stop-and-start to pause for potential objects.
Uber backup drivers fell short in safety functions
CityLab reported widespread shortcomings of the backup drivers who were responsible for supervising Uber’s self-driving cars. One, it is unclear whether humans can do a good job supervising machines that work well most of the time — requiring intense concentration to identify the occasional error, when most of the time, there are tempting distractions. Uber’s 8 to 10-hour shifts, with one 30 minute lunch break, were grueling — and drivers were often assigned to repeat the same driving “loops” which likely made the task particularly dull for drivers. Additional challenges included working entirely alone (without other humans) (after Uber removed a second staff person from each vehicle), and, CityLab reported, the vehicles’ frequent hard braking.
Meanwhile, CityLab spoke with multiple drivers who were dismissed from Uber for safety infractions, including using a phone while a vehicle was in motion — undermining any suggestion that all safety drivers do as instructed.