They can simulate "driving out of a raging fire" but not a flooded street? This seems like an admission that the fancy "world model simulation" doesn't actually mean much
replyhttps://waymo.com/blog/2026/02/the-waymo-world-model-a-new-f...
IMO there is a lot of daylight between “is not perfectly capable of simulating all situations and always used perfectly to the full capabilities of the system” and “doesn’t mean much”.
replyIn ATL this happens often enough that it's not a shock when it happens, we have lots of drainage problems here. I agree that I would have assumed Waymo had tested in events like this, but clearly not. So what I can say is running in ATL is a great test case for these events, and also the people who live here don't do a better job than Waymo did. There were dozens of people who ruined their cars yesterday trying to drive through deep water.
replyAs much as one could expect waymo to train on it, one could also expect a functioning city to not have flooded streets
replyWe had a story in the news this week about a Cybertruck driver who thought his Elonmobile was a boat because it has "wade mode" and deliberately drove into a lake! Humans are very stupid when it comes to driving through standing water!
replyIt can just mean that nobody though about flooded streets, what's way more reasonable than it seems because of the birthday paradox.
replyBut that also means they need a long time to adapt to a new situation. That may be very bad depending on how fine grained a situation is defined, or it may mean nothing and in a few months they'll be back without problems.
> It can just mean that nobody though about flooded streets
replyNo one who works for them thought of flooded roads.
That’s reassuring.
It’s been clear for a while to anyone without money riding on this that the relatively “easy” part fooled a lot of people into assuming that the last push to full self driving wouldn’t be radically greater challenge.
replyThe fact that they aren't a usual event is probably exactly the challenge here.
replyIt may not be usual in Atlanta itself, but living on the Southeastern coast within a mile or two of the water, for 30+ years, it’s a surprisingly common occurrence. I’ve got old photos around of kayaking through downtown Charleston during college, for instance, where the street flooding is not only usual but a many times per season occurrence. Lots of seaside areas have the same issue.
replyFloods aren’t a usual even.
replyHave you ever even been outside?
I’ve lived in a place where it flooded every year or two. It floods regularly where I live now too.
replyLocals know which roads to avoid and not to drive into a flood.