Uber resumed testing its self-jaywalking pedestrians around Pittsburgh this weekend despite lingering concerns from residents regarding their safety.
“You won’t catch me walking across a green light next to one of those things,” said Jack Glatz of Baldwin. “Jaywalking has a human element to it that you can’t replace, no matter how many fancy doodads you put on them. You’re telling me that thing can make the same confrontational eye contact to slow down a bus driver going 50 miles an hour that a human can? Get out of here.”
Shelly Wilcox of Beechview claimed she had been involved in several near collisions with the test models since their debut in 2016.
“Them things don’t know how to walk right,” she said, making a gesture at a honking motorist as she arbitrarily crossed Brookline Boulevard. “I was hurrying by four lanes of cars that were about to move one time last year, and this damn gizmo steps in front of the same sedan slamming on its brakes that I do. Lucky I was able to shimmy along the hood of the car or I could’ve really gotten hurt or even killed.”
Uber engineer Bakir Hassan believes that the self-jaywalking models will ultimately lead to improved safety if people are willing to tolerate the testing period.
“We must remember that these jaywalkers are run by computers,” he said. “They learn very procedurally; they don’t have friends and family who can show them how to appropriately waltz into oncoming traffic during rush hour. With time, though, they will understand the best routes for spontaneously crossing the street and be able to differentiate between the luxury vehicle that most definitely isn’t stopping and the minivan who’s going to let you pass because the driver has his kids in the backseat.”
“After awhile, the machines will be so good at it that people won’t even have to pick up their head from their phone when darting behind one into moving traffic.”
Pittsburghers remain nonetheless skeptical of Uber’s ability to make autonomous machines that understand how navigate the city.
Per Glatz: “Next, they’ll be saying they can make a car that knows the right speed to slow down to when entering a tunnel. What a load.”
