Your robotaxi might be a narc

你的自动驾驶出租车可能是一名“线人”

Waymo notified the police when it detected a gun during a ride, leading to the arrest of two teenagers. The incident exposes the limits of privacy in an autonomous vehicle. Waymo 在一次行程中检测到枪支后通知了警方，导致两名青少年被捕。这一事件暴露了自动驾驶汽车在隐私保护方面的局限性。

In early September, two teenagers got into a Waymo, but then ended up in the back of a police car. The robotaxi company said it detected “a violation of our terms of service involving a firearm,” pulled the car over, and alerted emergency services, according to the Los Angeles Times. Police arrested the passengers after allegedly finding a loaded AR-style “ghost gun” in the vehicle. 据《洛杉矶时报》报道，9 月初，两名青少年搭乘了一辆 Waymo，但最终却坐进了警车。这家自动驾驶出租车公司表示，其检测到“违反了涉及枪支的服务条款”，随后将车辆靠边停下并报警。警方在车内搜出了一把装有子弹的 AR 式“幽灵枪”后，将这两名乘客逮捕。

The arrests exposed a lot of unanswered questions about privacy and autonomous vehicles, including what they are recording, what they do with the footage, and how much privacy riders should expect while riding inside them. 这次逮捕行动引发了许多关于隐私和自动驾驶汽车的未解疑问，包括它们正在记录什么、如何处理这些影像，以及乘客在车内应享有何种程度的隐私。

Waymo’s camera-covered cars have already been drawn into the debate over privacy and surveillance. On a number of occasions, law enforcement agencies have obtained search warrants for footage captured by its cars, according to Bloomberg. Last year, the LAPD obtained footage of a hit-and-run that was recorded by a nearby Waymo vehicle. During anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles, five Waymos were vandalized and set on fire amid questions about whether the vehicles could be capturing images of protesters that might be used as evidence to identify or arrest them. Waymo does not publicly disclose how many law enforcement requests it receives or how often it complies. Waymo 遍布摄像头的车辆早已卷入隐私与监控的争议之中。据彭博社报道，执法机构曾多次获得搜查令，调取其车辆拍摄的影像。去年，洛杉矶警察局就曾获取了一辆附近的 Waymo 车辆所记录的肇事逃逸视频。在洛杉矶的反移民及海关执法局（ICE）抗议活动中，五辆 Waymo 遭到破坏并被纵火，原因在于人们质疑这些车辆是否在拍摄抗议者，并可能将影像作为识别或逮捕他们的证据。Waymo 并未公开披露其收到过多少次执法部门的请求，以及配合的频率。

Those concerns echo the backlash against Flock’s network of automated license-plate readers, which have given police the ability to track cars across jurisdictions and have prompted growing fears about government surveillance and misuse. Unlike fixed Flock cameras, Waymos move through cities carrying cameras both outside and inside their vehicles. 这些担忧与针对 Flock 自动车牌识别系统的抵制如出一辙。该系统使警方能够跨辖区追踪车辆，引发了人们对政府监控和滥用权力的日益恐惧。与固定的 Flock 摄像头不同，Waymo 车辆在城市中穿梭时，车内和车外都装有摄像头。

The latest case of the arrested teens takes those concerns a step further. Police did not approach Waymo after a crime looking for footage its cameras happened to capture. Waymo detected something inside the car and initiated the police response itself. 这起青少年被捕的最新案例将这些担忧推向了更深层面。警方并非在犯罪发生后才找上 Waymo 调取其偶然拍摄的影像，而是 Waymo 在车内检测到了异常，并主动发起了报警响应。

Waymo spokesperson Julia Ilina told The Verge in an email that the company uses its internal cameras to help enforce its terms of service, including detecting prohibited items and behavior. She said it uses automated technology to help Waymo’s teams identify potential violations, such as the presence of firearms inside the vehicle. “If Waymo detects a firearm in the vehicle, we may reach out to local law enforcement,” she added. Waymo 发言人 Julia Ilina 在给 The Verge 的电子邮件中表示，公司利用车内摄像头来协助执行服务条款，包括检测违禁物品和违规行为。她表示，公司使用自动化技术帮助团队识别潜在违规行为，例如车内出现枪支。“如果 Waymo 检测到车内有枪支，我们可能会联系当地执法部门，”她补充道。

Waymo did not explain how its automated system determines whether something may be a firearm, how confident it has to be before something gets flagged, what role humans play between an automated alert and a call to police, or what other violations of its terms of service might prompt a police response. Those are important omissions. This wasn’t a human taxi driver deciding to call 911. It was a driverless car, equipped with cameras and an AI brain, escalating a situation involving its passengers to police. Waymo 并未解释其自动化系统如何判断某物是否为枪支、在标记前需要达到多高的置信度、在自动警报与报警之间人类扮演了什么角色，或者还有哪些违反服务条款的行为会触发警方响应。这些都是关键的缺失信息。这并非人类出租车司机决定拨打 911，而是一辆配备了摄像头和 AI 大脑的无人驾驶汽车，主动将涉及乘客的情况升级为警方介入。

Bob Somers, a former engineer at autonomous vehicle company Zoox and technical adviser to the AV-safety nonprofit SAVE-US, said he would expect Waymo’s system to look for a range of potentially dangerous weapons and behaviors. The software may not need to decide with certainty that it has seen a firearm. It could instead flag something that resembles one for further review, he said. 自动驾驶公司 Zoox 的前工程师、自动驾驶安全非营利组织 SAVE-US 的技术顾问 Bob Somers 表示，他认为 Waymo 的系统会监测一系列潜在的危险武器和行为。他说，软件可能不需要百分之百确定看到的是枪支，而是可以将看起来像枪支的物体标记出来，供进一步审查。

“If there is a certain set of objects detected, then that would probably loop in a remote operator to take a look at what’s going on,” Somers said. “如果检测到特定的一组物体，系统可能会接入远程操作员来查看现场情况，”Somers 说道。

Phil Koopman, a Carnegie Mellon University professor emeritus who researches autonomous vehicle safety, said computer vision systems can be trained to recognize objects and potentially dangerous situations. “If you can train a computer to look at the road and decide how to drive, you can train a computer to decide if somebody’s holding a gun,” Koopman said. But, he added, those systems are “never 100 percent accurate.” 卡内基梅隆大学研究自动驾驶安全的荣誉退休教授 Phil Koopman 表示，计算机视觉系统可以被训练来识别物体和潜在的危险情况。“如果你能训练计算机观察道路并决定如何驾驶，你就能训练它判断某人是否拿着枪，”Koopman 说。但他补充道，这些系统“永远无法达到 100% 的准确率”。

That’s where the unanswered question about human review becomes important. A human taxi driver who sees a passenger holding something has context. They’ve been in the car for the entire ride. They can hear what the passengers are saying and ask questions. They can decide whether the object is a real gun, a toy, or something else entirely. Back in July, Waymo reported two teens to the police for underage drinking and shooting a toy gun loaded with water beads from the vehicle. It was not clear whether the teens ultimately faced any charges. 这就是关于人工审查的未解问题变得至关重要的原因。人类出租车司机如果看到乘客拿着东西，会有语境背景。他们全程都在车内，能听到乘客的对话并进行询问。他们可以判断该物体是真枪、玩具枪还是其他东西。今年 7 月，Waymo 曾向警方举报两名青少年在车内饮酒并使用装有水弹的玩具枪射击。目前尚不清楚这些青少年最终是否面临指控。

A remote worker brought in to review a flagged moment might not have all of that context because they haven’t experienced the entire ride the way a human driver would. Waymo says its interior microphones are generally active only during calls with Rider Support or when riders enable them, meaning a reviewer may not be able to hear what preceded the flagged moment. As of earlier this year, Waymo has about 70 “remote assistance agents” on duty at a given time in the US and the Philippines, who “provide advice and support to the Waymo Driver but do not directly control, steer, or drive the vehicle.” 被叫来审查标记片段的远程工作人员可能并不具备所有背景信息，因为他们没有像人类司机那样经历整个行程。Waymo 表示，其车内麦克风通常仅在与乘客支持部门通话时或由乘客启用时才会激活，这意味着审查员可能无法听到标记时刻之前发生了什么。截至今年早些时候，Waymo 在美国和菲律宾随时有约 70 名“远程协助专员”值班，他们“为 Waymo 驾驶系统提供建议和支持，但不直接控制、转向或驾驶车辆。”