Let me tell you about something.

I was in a Waymo the other day, and it was making a turn on Market Street, which you've ever been to San Francisco. This is kind of a street that causes problems with all the other streets because it's diagonal. So the intersection has six different roads coming together. But the Waymo is just about to complete a left turn. Everything's about to be okay. And the only way I could put it is, it loses its nerve. Oh, no. There's a light about to change.

Pedestrians start walking at the crosswalk. left turn. Everything's about to be okay. And the only way I could put it is, it loses its nerve.

Oh, no. There's a light about to change. Pedestrians start walking into the crosswalk.

And so this thing just starts to back up like, I'm talking 30 feet over like half a minute.

And pedestrians come into the crosswalk. And Kevin, I swear to God, they start laughing and pointing at me.

They're laughing. All of a sudden, I'm flashing back. I'm in middle school. I'm being ridiculed. I have no control over this whatsoever and I've never looked like a bigger dweeb than I did in the back of a Waymo that failed to complete a left turn. Oh man, you were a tourist attraction. I really was. The people in Poughkeepsie are going to be telling their friends about this one for years. Yeah, I'm already viral on Poughkeepsie Twitter. So the way most, you know, you may think that's very glamorous, but you're going to have these other moments where you're wishing you were just in a Ford. Yeah. So what was the issue? It just like couldn't decide to make the turn. I think it, it just thought the light was going to change, and it thought, we've got to get out of here. And it had a panic response. It had a fight or flight response, and it chose flight. And I wanted it to choose fight. I wanted to say, floor it. You'll make it. It'll be fine, I promise. I'm so sorry that happened to you.

Yeah, thank you.

It'll be all right.

I just love the thought of you just like sitting in traffic surrounded by tourists,

pointing and laughing.

And meanwhile, like, you know how the Waymos have like spa music that comes on?

Yes, exactly.

You're just like hearing the like the chill, the chill, pan flute music as you caused a citywide incident.

That's exactly what happened.

That's exactly what happened.

I was listening to the spobless playlist as I was hounded off the streets of San Francisco.

I'm Kevin Roos, a tech columnist at the New York Times.

I'm Casey Noon from Platformer.

And this is Hard Fork.

This week, the Trump administration is going after what it calls woke AI.

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