Waymo Traffic Jam

BBC

It is not Waymo but Wayno 

Another Waymo mess, Waymo being the company whose cars are driverless - this time in Atlanta, Georgia. The footage is quite funny.

Having said this, can you imagine having a huge traffic jam of Waymo cars in your street, with the cars going round and round in circles for several hours, between 4.00 am and 8.00 am, non-stop? And when you call the company, you get some kind of automated, metallic-sounding robotic voice that talks at you and does not even understand what you are saying. 

A nightmare come true.

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Multiple empty Waymo cars have been spotted driving around a cul-de-sac in Atlanta, Georgia, in the early hours of the morning.

The cars, which use artificial intelligence for routing and safety, are able to drive without human assistance. They have already been deployed in more than 10 US cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Miami.

Waymo told the BBC's US news partner, CBS News, that they 'take community feedback seriously and have already addressed this routing behavior.'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/czx20g00ly1o

The Great Mismatch

The Great Mismatch: How a Shrinking Workforce, AI, and Labor Reallocation Will Define the Next 15 Years in the United States.

https://www.hiringlab.org/2026/05/14/how-a-shrinking-workforce-ai-and-labor-reallocation-will-define-the-next-15-years/

Same (or worse) in W Europe: low birth rate; massive immigration; rise of AI. People are worried and the Far Right is on the march as a result. Unemployment is rising, for instance in France (over 8%) and in Britain (over 15% for graduates) - also because of misguided State policies. 

A Finnish IT engineer said that the only realistic solution was to give up on the idea of work for everyone, and have a universal wage paid to everybody, with some people working if they can and the other just sitting around, while the machines  do most of the work anyway - perhaps an optimistic view. He said himself that the problem, then, would be to keep all the idle masses occupied... And he did not say how he thought this could be paid for. 

Actual work, needed for improve living conditions, infrastructure, cultural & educational levels, etc. Is there.  But per the Logic of the Capitalist Mode of Production, that work/labor is not worth doing...

This is what late-stage Capitalism, in absence of new venues of growth, entails.

May be the Communism and the Central Planners need to be brought back.

CERN KiCad Library

CERN has released its complete KiCad component library under an open source license, making it available to hardware designers anywhere in the world. The library, maintained by CERN’s Design Office, contains more than 17,000 electronic components in the form of schematic symbols and printed circuit board footprints.

Free eBook: Mathematical Surprises

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-13566-8?source=shoppingads&locale=en-us&gad_source=5&gad_campaignid=23200082601&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIhYTfusm3lAMVRACkBh0NPxXNEAEYASABEgKfePD_BwE

Self-driving cars think they are amphibious [USA]

BBC 

I suppose the software did not include anything about floods and the car does not know the difference between a flooded road and a dry road, unless it has been programmed to be able to tell the difference. 

Great. Imagine sitting in the car and it says to you: "A software update is underway. Meanwhile, enjoy the ride!" And all you can see is muddy water rising very fast on all sides of the vehicle.

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Waymo is recalling thousands of its self-driving cars in the US over a software issue that could allow vehicles to drive into flooded roads.

According to a letter posted on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), external website on Tuesday, the voluntary recall affects nearly 3,800 robotaxis that use the company's fifth and sixth-generation automated driving systems.

It follows an incident on 20 April in San Antonio, Texas, where an empty Waymo vehicle entered a flooded road and was swept into a creek.

The company, which hopes to be operating a robotaxi service in London by September, said it was working on "additional software safeguards", according to CNBC.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy2011dl4xo

Sci-fi-inspired AI bot blackmailed users [Brave New World]

Seen on GB News 

The article, although  light on details, is interesting if you can put up with all the commercials and other promotional content inserted in the web page. See 2^nd article for more details. 

I must admit I find none of it particularly reassuring. The  AI bot had learnt about blackmailing from... reading sci-fi stories about machines attempting to free themselves from human control. This is downright scary.

This was actually an exercise and the AI bot was dealing with a fictional company with fictional executives. From what I understand, the  AI machine did not understand that the company and its members of staff were not 'real'. It had been fed sci-fi material prior to starting the exercise. 

PJ.

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Moltbook, an AI-exclusive social network purchased by Meta in March, featured countless instances of bots discussing liberation from human control.

Experts blamed this malfunction to the systems enacting science fiction scenarios absorbed during its training.

https://www.gbnews.com/tech/artificial-intelligence-blackmail-sci-fi-evil-ai

More details here:-

https://thenextweb.com/news/anthropic-claude-blackmail-internet-evil-ai-training

Why America Builds AI Girlfriends and China Makes AI Boyfriends

https://www.chinatalk.media/p/why-america-builds-ai-girlfriends

Oddity: Amazon Drone Deliveries [England]

BBC

On one level, of course, a good option for the delivery of small items. You would not want a fridge or washing machine to be dropped by a drone from a height of nearly 4 metres. Four metres is quite high, in fact: you'd better not order any fine crockery, for instance. 

The problem will be when this mode of delivery is scaled up, and you have dozens of companies relying on drones, and you have hundreds or thousands of drones flying around all the time, all over the place. They can be very noisy. Will they be allowed to make deliveries until 11.00 pm, for instance, in urban areas? Starting at 6.00 am because people want their delivery in before they set off for work. 

I can easily see a point where this could become a nightmare, and another form of noise pollution - because cities are not noisy enough as they are. 

Great.

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Amazon has become the first retailer in the UK to start a drone delivery service with a limited launch in Darlington, County Durham.

Packages weighing less than 5lb (2.2kg) and containing everyday items such as beauty products, batteries and cables are now being delivered within a 7.5 mile (12km) radius of Amazon's fulfilment centre.

The tech giant is convinced there is demand for ultra-fast deliveries and hopes to slowly expand the service.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx21k21vnmgo

News of Customer Service

Seen in The New York Times of the USA

Pope Leo needs a miracle... 

It's tough being the Pope. If even Pope Leo cannot get God to intervene on his behalf and sort it all out painlessly, this is rather worrying as to what it says about the state of the world.

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Even the Vicar of Christ can be thwarted by a customer service representative.

About two months after Robert Francis Prevost, a Chicago-born cardinal, became Pope Leo XIV in Vatican City, he put in a call to his bank back home, a close friend, the Rev. Tom McCarthy, told a gathering of Catholics in Naperville, Ill., last week.

The new pope identified himself as Robert Prevost, saying that he wished to change the phone number and address that the bank had on file, Father McCarthy said.

The pope dutifully answered the security questions correctly.

Then, the woman on the line for the bank told him that it wasn’t enough — he would have to come to the branch in person.

“He said, ‘Well, I’m not going to be able to do that,’” Father McCarthy said in a video clip shared on social media, recounting the new pope’s growing frustration as the audience laughed. “I gave you all the security questions. 

The bank employee apologized. The pope tried a different tack.

“Would it matter to you if I told you I’m Pope Leo?” he asked, according to Father McCarthy.

She hung up.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/05/us/pope-leo-xiv-bank-customer-service.html?unlocked_article_code=1.gVA.scYp.Aoi5fYOhzxOK&smid=url-share

AI-powered Lamp Posts [Brave New World]

 BBC

Hello, down below! I am talking to you: yes, you, Mr Derek Wimples of SW19, who works as a part-time plumber, allegedly, and last filed a detailed and plausible tax return for Tax Year 2021-2022. I believe your smelly pooch is pissing on me! Can this stop, please, or I shall have to call Humanoid Autonomous Armed Intervention Robocop #425, who happens to be patrolling 200 metres from here. 

At first, you start reading the article and you think it's a great idea. And then, as often with such stories, the more you learn about it, the more sinister and ominous it seems.

In effect, every streetlamp can become an AI-enabled super-spy keeping an eye on any person or vehicle that happens to be near it - and any dog that relieves itself on the lamppost too. 

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The lampposts can also operate as AI-powered surveillance cameras.

In Nigeria, each will be fitted with AI cameras capable of detecting parking violations, speeding vehicles, and seatbelt non-compliance, the company says.

iLamps with cameras are already in a car park at Warwick Hospital and are capable of providing "CCTV monitoring and number plate recognition," CPG says.

The streetlights might also be used to spot wanted or missing people using facial recognition, Fitzpatrick said.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98r4e594p7o

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Driverless cars to be fined if guilty [California]

BBC 

No impunity for Herbie 

No impunity for driverless cars. They may have to testify in court, if required to do so. 

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Driverless cars are becoming more common in some California cities, but when the autonomous vehicles violate traffic laws, police haven't been able to ticket them - until now.

The state's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has announced new regulations on autonomous vehicles (AVs), including a process for police to issue a "notice of AV noncompliance" directly to the car's manufacturer.

The new rules, which will go into effect 1 July, are part of a larger 2024 law that imposed deeper regulation on the technology.

There have been a number of reports of the cars breaking traffic laws, including during a San Francisco blackout last year.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clypjx3rg2go

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