Are Google's StreetView drivers humans or robots?
Bill's friend, the one with whom he was going on a motorbike holiday in Tasmania, suddenly died. Bill, being upset and Australian, went out and got drunk.
A cab dropped him off back at his house. But he collapsed before he could get to his front door.
So along came a friendly Google StreetView camera car. The Australian version of the service was to be launched August 4. So the Googler had a lot of filming to do.
He shot the prostrate Bill who was lying on his back, his feet sticking out into the road.
This was a click and run.
(Credit:
CC re-ality)
The driver didn't stop to see whether Bill was all right. He didn't even get out of his camera car to move Bill's feet away from the curb. Like a TMZ.com paparazzo, his deadline seemed to be more important than something that could have been a dead body.
Did his shot of the beFostered Bill make the first edition of Google StreetView Australia? Too right, mate.
Bill (he doesn't want his last name plastered all over the place as well as his drunken pose) was as sanguine as the Australian Prime Minister, who, when he was seen getting drunk in an New York strip club, remarked: "I think any bloke who's honest about their lives can point to times in their lives when they've got it wrong."
Speaking of his dead friend, Bill said: "'I know what he would have done if I left --he would have partied, too. That's what I would've wanted him to do, so that's what I did with some friends."
However, he added: "I wasn't really thinking there would be someone driving by with a video camera on the roof filming me, either."
Who was the anti-Samaritan driving that Google camera car? Are his parents made of metal? What sort of instructions did he have? Why didn't he get out to help? And why didn't anyone at Google Australia notice that there was, well, a body lying in the street? (Google only removed the image after Bill's story came to light)
I know that people make jokes about Google being the quintessential engineering company. And that is something this blog will never stoop to (being an engineering company, that is).
But I hope you, too, would like to know how the company reacted to one of its drivers leaving a man lying in the street while he filmed him.
Or could it be that this driver was, in fact, yet another robot with vision problems?
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
News photographers in war zones and hunger stricken Africa are not and can not be expected to save lives. It's not their role. Has never been.
Besides that, it would be very subjective where it begins and ends. Help stranded motorists change tires? Give a blanket to a homeless person?
Then there's the question whether the driver even SAW the person; the camera has 360 degrees FOV, I doubt the driver does.
Or even if he looks for them.
That would be fair, no?
Google has gotten into increasing trouble because they continue to press into new data mining directions in order to expand their opportunities for driving advertising revenue. For all of their "don't be evil" claims, they are increasingly like any other large corporation: too large for any one or a few people to monitor everything and dispassionately judge its "evilness." Once there are numerous judges of "evilness," many opportunities increase to do evil.
in general thou I would like to know if their were any other obstacles that could have prohibited the google drivers vision of bill? and who is to say that the driver was not able to see Bill because he may have been on the other side of the road? can I see the raw feeds of this?
no, _SDC_ is exactly right. Sure it might not match the magnitude, but it comes down to what you are expected and equipped to do. Checking on someone in the road is absolutely not the job of the guy who was driving the Google van, and assuming that he is definitely expected to stop is asinine. There are so many stupid assumptions in this article:
1) That the driver saw Bill
2) That the driver DIDN'T call emergency services
3) That the driver is somehow obligated to stop
I don't know. Maybe it's me, but I have a very strong doubt that even 50% of the population would stop. It's just smarter to call the emergency services of your country. If it's a dead body, what would you getting out do? Nothing.
Also, I fail to see how this incident implies all that nonsense about Google that you're going on about.
This article (and your comment) are simply trolling.
Anyway, frankly, I just don't see a story here. The only reason people can pretend that a story even exists is because, in this case, the person who drove by happened to have a 360-degree camera taking photos of everything around him. But he wasn't surveying those photos as he drove. He was simply following his GPS, or whatever they use to determine what street they're on, etc. (And how many of us know how said StreetView photos get posted to the site; could well be that they're posted automatically, meaning no one at Google may have been aware of this guy's photo beforehand.)
One wonders how many people who didn't have cameras attached to their vehicles, drove past Bill without stopping to help. The article doesn't even say whether he came to of his own accord or was awoken by a passing motorist.
Finally, it looks like Bill didn't get too far from his cab before passing out. I guess we should all be condemning the cabby, too, since he was apparently more interested in getting to his next fare than stopping to help a customer who just got out of his cab.
This just shows that " __SdC__" is clueless and Google is every bit the careless, pathetic company that most large companies with highly over inflated stock prices and egos are. Clueless and pathetic.
Who even knows if it was a neighborhood where you'd want to get out of the car? (I mean, with drunks lying in the street and stuff.) (That's a joke, folks.)
Mastercko has it right (above).
- by pjk0 August 14, 2008 4:39 PM PDT
- Considering how many miles that those Google photo vehicles rack up per day and per week, it is clear that the vehicle (and driver) are going to pass hundreds of "interesting" sights a week. Expecting the driver to stop and interrupt the process every time someone is spotted changing a flat tire or "sleeping" by the side of the road is a bit unrealistic. As others have pointed out, apparently lots of other employees from all sorts of other companies driving trucks, cabs, buses, back/forth to work and so on probably didn't stop either.
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- by __SdC__ August 22, 2008 6:40 AM PDT
- I am very glad I made the post. It certainly provoked some strong reactions; that's what a discussion is all about.
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(24 Comments)This is a conclusion looking for a justification. There are far more useful questions about Google (or any other company's) corporate ethics to spend time on.
Move along..
Especially I love Heebee Jeebies for calling me clueless; thank you soooo much, and now I can call you "naive". Good luck when you have your first heart attack from ROTFL too much and are lying in the street expecting the first passer by to help YOU. This is an impersonal and tough society we live in (maybe Australia to a lesser extent but urbanized Holland where I live, it's pretty grim).