uber halt
The Morning After: Uber halts its self-driving car tests
Sunday evening, one of Uber's autonomous SUVs struck a woman who later died at the hospital as a result of her injuries. It appears to be the first time a pedestrian has died after a collision with an autonomous vehicle, and as a result, Uber has temporarily suspended all its testing. While an investigation is ongoing, the Tempe police chief provided an update based on video from the car itself, and said "it's very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode (autonomous or human-driven) based on how she came from the shadows right into the roadway." Still, if there's a chance for widespread adoption of self-driving car technology, the amount of transparency Uber displays right now will be important. The idea of a data-science company no one has ever heard of attempting to poke around in a country's collective psyche sounds like a plot out of Black Mirror, and yet here we are.
- Transportation > Passenger (0.95)
- Transportation > Ground > Road (0.95)
- Information Technology > Robotics & Automation (0.64)