**Self-Driving Cars in San Francisco: A Glimpse into the Future of Transportation**
In today’s episode of *The Tech Guy*, Samuel bull salmon and his team discussed an intriguing topic: the proliferation of self-driving cars, specifically Waymo and Cruise Robo taxis, in San Francisco. The conversation revolved around the challenges these vehicles face, how locals are reacting to them, and the potential for scaling this technology to other cities.
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**Disabling Self-Driving Cars with a Simple Trick**
One of the most fascinating aspects of the discussion was the revelation that San Franciscans have discovered a clever way to disable these autonomous vehicles. According to a TikTok video, placing an orange cone on the hood of a self-driving car can stop it in its tracks. The vehicle interprets the cone as a traffic safety obstacle and halts operations. Samuel shared his experience of seeing numerous Waymo and Cruise cars during a recent visit to the city, noting that cones are abundant and easily accessible. However, he urged caution, reminding listeners not to take cones from critical locations.
The humor in this hack was not lost on the team. A friend of Samuel’s even admitted to almost trying the trick but quickly felt remorse, realizing it could cause a traffic jam. This incident highlights the unintended consequences of such actions and underscores the importance of responsible behavior when interacting with autonomous vehicles.
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**Challenges in Scaling Self-Driving Technology**
The discussion then shifted to the broader challenges of scaling self-driving technology beyond San Francisco. The team acknowledged that while the cars are functioning well in relatively controlled environments like Phoenix and Austin, replicating this success in other cities is no easy feat. Each city presents unique challenges, such as weather conditions like snow and rain, which can disrupt the vehicles’ ability to detect lanes and road edges.
Samuel shared insights from a conversation with someone at Cruise about how difficult it was to perfect self-driving technology in San Francisco’s hilly terrain. The company had to address issues like cul-de-sac navigation, where autonomous cars would line up and make U-turns instead of left turns, causing congestion. While these problems have since been resolved, the experience reinforces the idea that each city requires a tailored approach.
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**Broader Implications for Urban Transportation**
As self-driving cars become more common, questions about safety, responsibility, and scalability loom large. The team reflected on how companies like Google and Cruise are working closely with local governments to avoid repeating mistakes from the past, such as Bird’s failed rollout of electric scooters. These efforts are crucial for ensuring that autonomous vehicles integrate smoothly into urban environments without causing gridlock or safety issues.
The conversation also touched on the potential economic implications of self-driving technology. While it may not eliminate jobs entirely—much like Uber didn’t replace cab drivers—it could disrupt traditional transportation systems and reshape how cities manage traffic flow.
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**Conclusion: The Future of Autonomous Transportation**
In closing, the team expressed optimism about the future of self-driving cars, acknowledging that while there are still hurdles to overcome, progress is being made. As companies refine their technology and learn from each new city they enter, the vision of a widespread network of autonomous vehicles becomes increasingly plausible.
For those interested in staying up-to-date on the latest tech news, Samuel recommended checking out *Tech News Weekly*, a podcast hosted by Micah Sifuentes and Jason Howell. The show offers insights into the people shaping—and sometimes misshaping—the tech landscape.
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This article captures the full essence of the transcription, providing a detailed and engaging exploration of self-driving cars in San Francisco and their potential impact on urban transportation worldwide.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis is TWiT today on the ask The Tech Guy Samuel bull salmon our car guy was on uh talking about San Francisco which is inundated with these self-driving waymo and cruise Robo taxis San franciscans have discovered that the way to disable them is to put an orange cone on its Hood because the vehicle thinks you know that's a traffic safety area but it can't drive around it no it just it just stops uh let me this is a tick tock video that describes uh this technique and I don't know I I don't we're kind of distant from San Francisco I did see I was in the city yesterday I did see quite a few uh waymos and uh and cruises and they do see but see if you just put a cone so funny just find a traffic cone they're all all over the place of course but don't take it from anywhere important then gently they say place it on the hood and uh you know as long as there's nobody in the car obviously if there's a safety driver he'll come and take it off the hood but if if it's just driving by itself it Ah that's terrible it's just a friend of mine said he almost did that the other day but then he felt bad because it would have caused a traffic jam OMG yeah that's the problem because that that disabled uh Cruz is just sitting there in traffic and that we see enough of that anyway I'm I'm sure Google and or waymo and Cruz will send a software update that you know tells it to back up really quickly and it'll fall off or whatever wiggle wiggle the hood some people feel really like I don't know like violated somehow because there are these like Robo taxis just driving around their city and you know like who's responsible who's accountable and you know so far there haven't been any like you know major safety like you know there's been small ones though there were emergency vehicles were blocked by a cruise in San Francisco some weeks ago I was talking to a friend who lives on a hilly area of San Francisco he said yeah for like several weeks a lot of a lot of self-driving vehicles I guess they were training on the Hills would we just we're all over the place then there are people who live in San Francisco on cul-de-sacs uh and because the cruise Vehicles follow traffic laws you know any any human will just go okay I am turning left here because I'm not going down that cul-de-sac but these vehicles go down the cul-de-sac make a U-turn and then come back out so they don't make a left turn they only make right turns and it and they've been lined up in the cul-de-sac like dozens of them making this this crazy turn I think they must have fixed that because I haven't heard about that in a while but yeah they're not it's not merely that oh the it creeps me out they can cause problems but it's kind of amazing they've gotten them to work so yeah in San Francisco yeah I think that the thing that I keep wondering every time and I see them every time I go in the city for a dinner or whatever they're just there there's more of them at night I just see them all the time and yeah the thing I keep thinking is like when are they going to have these in other cities right like how how hard is it to bring this now to like every major metropolitan area and I think that's the fact that it hasn't happened yet is like it's either because they're worried you know that there's going to be some safety issue you know and something bad is going to happen and it's going to shut the whole thing down or you know they've like those little edge cases in San Francisco are in every single City and they're different and so it's just going to be so difficult to to scale this you know to to other places but they are in some other places I think they're both in uh Arizona Phoenix Austin has some now in fact Austin yeah a lot of local laws and those pieces they're being cautious right you don't want to just like if you don't want to do what bird did and just drop a whole bunch of self-driving cars happy driving oh those scooters you mean oh yeah which are now worth oh yeah went from what a billion valuation to 25 billion now just a whole nother story yeah uh but you don't want to just drop a thing like that you got to work with the local government like Google and the other companies of the space and crews are much more cautious as they should be and you so you think they could you think it's not there's no Tech there's no hurdle to scaling these other than laws and and regulations oh I I'm sure in some cities there are some because of very unique circumstances like snow is probably a very unique circumstance note all the cities we talked about Austin others are not usually snow cities they are warm cities that don't have a lot of snow snow is your biggest problem where it like cuts off all the lines and things and Rain how about rain I mean they all rain in these cities rain is easier you can still see the lines like it can detect right like in three to 60 degrees it's when snow completely covers uh like the middle lines and the sidelines and like humans can kind of understand where like the edge of the road is by feel right uh the machines you know that's just a much harder problem so when you start seeing self-driving cars in the middle of winter in the Twin Cities that's when you know the technology has done it right and I talked to someone at Cruz okay go ahead no no I I was just gonna say I talked to someone at Cruz about it the other day and it was like I I think the message was you know don't underestimate how difficult it was to to make it work in San Francisco and you know how long that took and sort of how bespoke it is I guess um and I I think I think that's an inch it'll be interesting to see um because nobody wants to like none of these companies want to just invest all that Manpower in every single City like they want to they want to figure out how to make a turnkey well and that's important because we we forget they need to make money in the long run they can't they're not just doing this just because they can they want to make it a profitable business and if it's prohibitively each new city is good I think each new city is going to be a little bit easier that like they're going to learn some stuff from every new city and and theoretically A fifth or the 8th or the 10th city is going to be a little bit easier you know by the time they get to smaller cities in South Dakota it's going to be turnkey so this is one use of AI that I think probably is okay right it's not that doesn't pose an existential threat to mankind uh as long as you're not a cab driver yeah true it's probably bad for although uh I think about we were talking about this uh earlier I think about what happened in New York City when Uber took over it didn't get rid of cab drivers it just meant there were far more cars in the street and and it was worse for everybody except I guess it was it probably was good for Subway uh use uh we've got really gridlocked for a while because of all the Ubers on the city streets hey I know you're super busy so I won't keep you long but I wanted to tell you about a show here on the twit network called Tech news weekly you are a busy person and uh during your week you may want to learn about all the tech news that's fit to well say not print here on Twitter it's Tech news weekly uh me Micah Sergeant my co-host Jason Howell we talk to and about the people making and breaking the tech news and we love the opportunity to get to share those stories with you and let the people who wrote them or broke them share them as well so I hope you check it out every Thursday right here on twit all rightthis is TWiT today on the ask The Tech Guy Samuel bull salmon our car guy was on uh talking about San Francisco which is inundated with these self-driving waymo and cruise Robo taxis San franciscans have discovered that the way to disable them is to put an orange cone on its Hood because the vehicle thinks you know that's a traffic safety area but it can't drive around it no it just it just stops uh let me this is a tick tock video that describes uh this technique and I don't know I I don't we're kind of distant from San Francisco I did see I was in the city yesterday I did see quite a few uh waymos and uh and cruises and they do see but see if you just put a cone so funny just find a traffic cone they're all all over the place of course but don't take it from anywhere important then gently they say place it on the hood and uh you know as long as there's nobody in the car obviously if there's a safety driver he'll come and take it off the hood but if if it's just driving by itself it Ah that's terrible it's just a friend of mine said he almost did that the other day but then he felt bad because it would have caused a traffic jam OMG yeah that's the problem because that that disabled uh Cruz is just sitting there in traffic and that we see enough of that anyway I'm I'm sure Google and or waymo and Cruz will send a software update that you know tells it to back up really quickly and it'll fall off or whatever wiggle wiggle the hood some people feel really like I don't know like violated somehow because there are these like Robo taxis just driving around their city and you know like who's responsible who's accountable and you know so far there haven't been any like you know major safety like you know there's been small ones though there were emergency vehicles were blocked by a cruise in San Francisco some weeks ago I was talking to a friend who lives on a hilly area of San Francisco he said yeah for like several weeks a lot of a lot of self-driving vehicles I guess they were training on the Hills would we just we're all over the place then there are people who live in San Francisco on cul-de-sacs uh and because the cruise Vehicles follow traffic laws you know any any human will just go okay I am turning left here because I'm not going down that cul-de-sac but these vehicles go down the cul-de-sac make a U-turn and then come back out so they don't make a left turn they only make right turns and it and they've been lined up in the cul-de-sac like dozens of them making this this crazy turn I think they must have fixed that because I haven't heard about that in a while but yeah they're not it's not merely that oh the it creeps me out they can cause problems but it's kind of amazing they've gotten them to work so yeah in San Francisco yeah I think that the thing that I keep wondering every time and I see them every time I go in the city for a dinner or whatever they're just there there's more of them at night I just see them all the time and yeah the thing I keep thinking is like when are they going to have these in other cities right like how how hard is it to bring this now to like every major metropolitan area and I think that's the fact that it hasn't happened yet is like it's either because they're worried you know that there's going to be some safety issue you know and something bad is going to happen and it's going to shut the whole thing down or you know they've like those little edge cases in San Francisco are in every single City and they're different and so it's just going to be so difficult to to scale this you know to to other places but they are in some other places I think they're both in uh Arizona Phoenix Austin has some now in fact Austin yeah a lot of local laws and those pieces they're being cautious right you don't want to just like if you don't want to do what bird did and just drop a whole bunch of self-driving cars happy driving oh those scooters you mean oh yeah which are now worth oh yeah went from what a billion valuation to 25 billion now just a whole nother story yeah uh but you don't want to just drop a thing like that you got to work with the local government like Google and the other companies of the space and crews are much more cautious as they should be and you so you think they could you think it's not there's no Tech there's no hurdle to scaling these other than laws and and regulations oh I I'm sure in some cities there are some because of very unique circumstances like snow is probably a very unique circumstance note all the cities we talked about Austin others are not usually snow cities they are warm cities that don't have a lot of snow snow is your biggest problem where it like cuts off all the lines and things and Rain how about rain I mean they all rain in these cities rain is easier you can still see the lines like it can detect right like in three to 60 degrees it's when snow completely covers uh like the middle lines and the sidelines and like humans can kind of understand where like the edge of the road is by feel right uh the machines you know that's just a much harder problem so when you start seeing self-driving cars in the middle of winter in the Twin Cities that's when you know the technology has done it right and I talked to someone at Cruz okay go ahead no no I I was just gonna say I talked to someone at Cruz about it the other day and it was like I I think the message was you know don't underestimate how difficult it was to to make it work in San Francisco and you know how long that took and sort of how bespoke it is I guess um and I I think I think that's an inch it'll be interesting to see um because nobody wants to like none of these companies want to just invest all that Manpower in every single City like they want to they want to figure out how to make a turnkey well and that's important because we we forget they need to make money in the long run they can't they're not just doing this just because they can they want to make it a profitable business and if it's prohibitively each new city is good I think each new city is going to be a little bit easier that like they're going to learn some stuff from every new city and and theoretically A fifth or the 8th or the 10th city is going to be a little bit easier you know by the time they get to smaller cities in South Dakota it's going to be turnkey so this is one use of AI that I think probably is okay right it's not that doesn't pose an existential threat to mankind uh as long as you're not a cab driver yeah true it's probably bad for although uh I think about we were talking about this uh earlier I think about what happened in New York City when Uber took over it didn't get rid of cab drivers it just meant there were far more cars in the street and and it was worse for everybody except I guess it was it probably was good for Subway uh use uh we've got really gridlocked for a while because of all the Ubers on the city streets hey I know you're super busy so I won't keep you long but I wanted to tell you about a show here on the twit network called Tech news weekly you are a busy person and uh during your week you may want to learn about all the tech news that's fit to well say not print here on Twitter it's Tech news weekly uh me Micah Sergeant my co-host Jason Howell we talk to and about the people making and breaking the tech news and we love the opportunity to get to share those stories with you and let the people who wrote them or broke them share them as well so I hope you check it out every Thursday right here on twit all right\n"
