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A viral video shows several people cornering a stopped Waymo robotaxi on the street and tagging it with graffiti, while a front seat passenger clutches a small beige poodle — a scene that's both comical and dystopian in its strangeness.
And it's one of three incidents that occurred in the early evening hours of September 21, according to the San Francisco Police Department, all occurring in the Mission District of the city.
"[A]n online police report was filed on behalf of an autonomous vehicle operator," wrote a police spokesperson in an email message to Futurism. "The reportee stated that there were three separate incidents of vandalism on three different autonomous vehicles."
The suspects were masked and filmed themselves using cellphones while making graffiti marks on the Waymo cars, police said.
The police didn't specify which of the incidents was captured by the viral video, but it clearly illustrates growing tension between autonomous robotaxis and the public, to the degree that the vehicles are being deliberately targeted. And capturing the footage seems to show that these vandals want the incidents publicized.
Waymo recently expanded service in Fog City, which has played host to numerous troubling confrontations between autonomous vehicles and angry pedestrians such as tires getting slashed and cars being set on fire.
Futurism asked Waymo for information about the filmed incident, but our questions weren't immediately returned on Wednesday.
This is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen pic.twitter.com/EsIzK4UXba
— JustinBoldaji (@justinboldaji) September 24, 2024
These incidents and others like it belie the sunny techno-optimism that Waymo and tech evangelists project. Robotaxis are popular among a certain set, if you go by tweets from tech-happy passengers, but they're a source of controversy among others.
Waymo, owned by Google parent company Alphabet, and other robotaxi businesses are seen by some as potential privacy violations on wheels due to the numerous cameras onboard.
Some have also called for the prohibition of robotaxis in San Francisco because they see them as bad for workers who drive taxis for a living and a road safety hazard.
Indeed, there have been incidents of robotaxis committing alarming street violations like driving against incoming traffic. Federal investigators are looking at more than 20 incidents involving Waymo vehicles as of May this year.
On that subject, Waymo rival Cruise has had a rockier rollout, with its fleet of vehicles getting abruptly pulled from the streets of San Francisco last year. It drove into controversy when a Cruise robotaxi dragged a woman after a car crash.
That traffic victim reached an $8 million settlement with Cruise this year, underlining the dangers that robotaxis may poise to pedestrians.
Perhaps this lawsuit, accidents involving robotaxis, and the drumbeat from CEOs that people's jobs will be replaced with AI have radicalized some into becoming revenge-seeking luddites.
If that's the case, expect a more bumpy ride into the future.
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