This Goofy Shirt Paralyzes Robotaxis

You know, if the driverless taxis that Elon Musk and Tesla have promised us are going to become reality, AI computer pilots are going to need a bit more intelligence than this. An Instagram poster video'd himself using the same jaw-droppingly analog technique to fool a self-driving Waymo Jaguar I-Pace vehicle into stopping in four distinct scenarios—without using an actual stop sign or, you know, leaping in front of the moving Jags in Phoenix, Arizona.

The poster, known as “jasonbcarr,” employed a very high-tech method of virtual subterfuge: A T-shirt printer fed the design of a stop sign, with a correct-enough shape, coloring, and lettering. He then filmed himself—thanks to “misterphx”—standing at the side of the road on the sidewalk, wearing said T-shirt, as different Waymo taxis drove by. The duo was able to repeatedly fool the Jaguar I-Pace Waymo taxi into stopping, with the only "miss" being one of the nighttime scenarios, in which the Jaguar rolled past their funny T-shirt without hesitation.

On the fourth and final test, once again at night, the driverless taxi was preparing to turn left, but "saw" the shirt and came to a stop. The surprise was that it held for much longer than normal and it wasn’t until the t-shirt wearer walked away did the Waymo drive away. What jasonbcarr posited—and we happen to agree with—is that the Waymo programming was convinced that the stop sign t-shirt was a “lollipop” construction sign holder. It awaited a “command” that you typically see by the holder turning the sign, letting the driver know it’s safe to proceed. In this case, the t-shirt moving away was assumed to be the same command.

See All 15 Photos15

It is sort of funny that the Waymos can be fooled by such a simple “trick,” but we’re also talking about something that is programmed to recognize the construction sign. While it seems dumb on the surface, it also means that the Waymo driverless system is working mostly as intended—it's seeing a seemingly temporary stop sign (we think a guy wearing a stop sign is technically temporary, as he isn't rooted into the earth with a signpost) and stopping. It does beat the alternative, like that self-driving Cruise vehicle that ran from the cops and Tesla’s Full Self Driving (FSD)—that really isn’t self-driving at all—that runs into curbs and crashes into emergency vehicles. Now, it stands to reason if the Waymo can be tricked by fake stop signs, it could potentially be tricked into, say, exceeding local speed limits by a T-shirt with a higher number on it—if, you know, Waymo and other testers didn't limit their vehicles' top speeds regardless of signage—we'll leave you with one more kernel of knowledge from jasonbcarr, conveyed in the text from misterphx: “Don’t use this magic trick for evil, Stay safe out there, kids!”