Technology

Cruise confirms robotaxis rely on human assistance every four to five miles

Published

2 years ago

November 7, 2023

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This Cruise in San Francisco seemingly could not figure out how to pull aside on a narrow street to let a buss pass.

Matt Rosoff, CNBC

Cruise CEO and founder Kyle Vogt posted comments on Hacker News on Sunday responding to allegations that his company’s robotaxis aren’t really self-driving, but instead require frequent help from humans working in a remote operations center.

First, Vogt confirmed that the General Motors-owned company does have a remote assistance team, in response to a discussion under the header, “GM’s Cruise alleged to rely on human operators to achieve ‘autonomous’ driving.”

The CEO wrote, “Cruise AVs are being remotely assisted (RA) 2-4% of the time on average, in complex urban environments. This is low enough already that there isn’t a huge cost benefit to optimizing much further, especially given how useful it is to have humans review things in certain situations.”

CNBC confirmed with Cruise spokesperson Tiffany Testo that the comments were accurate and came from the company’s CEO.

Cruise recently took the drastic move of grounding all of its driverless operations following a collision that injured a pedestrian in San Francisco on October 2. The collision and Cruise’s disclosures around it led to state regulators stripping the company of its permits to operate driverless vehicles in California, unless there is a driver aboard.

The DMV previously said its decision was based on several factors, citing four regulations that allow suspension in the event “the Department determines the manufacturer’s vehicles are not safe for the public’s operation,” and “the manufacturer has misrepresented any information related to safety of the autonomous technology of its vehicles.”

As NBC News previously reported, California Department of Motor Vehicles accused Cruise of failing to show them a full video depicting the October 2 collision, during which a pedestrian was thrown into the path of the Cruise robotaxi by a human driver in a different car who hit her first.

During that incident, Cruise previously told NBC, its vehicle “braked aggressively before impact and because it detected a collision” but then tried to pull over and in the process pulled the pedestrian forward about 20 feet.

Rival Waymo, which is owned by Google parent company Alphabet, continues to operate in the city.

How often do remote workers intervene?

A New York Times story followed last week diving into issues within Cruise that may have led to the safety issues, and setback for Cruise’s reputation and business. The story included a stat that at Cruise, workers intervened to help the company’s cars every 2.5 to five miles.

Vogt explained on Hacker News that the stat was a reference to how frequently Cruise robotaxis initiate a remote assistance session.

He wrote, “Of those, many are resolved by the AV itself before the human even looks at things, since we often have the AV initiate proactively and before it is certain it will need help. Many sessions are quick confirmation requests (it is ok to proceed?) that are resolved in seconds. There are some that take longer and involve guiding the AV through tricky situations. Again, in aggregate this is 2-4% of time in driverless mode.”

CNBC asked Cruise to confirm and provide further details on Monday.

The Cruise spokesperson wrote in an e-mail, that a “remote assistance” session is triggered roughly every four to five miles, not every 2.5 miles, in Cruise’s driverless fleet.

“Often times the AV proactively initiates these before it is certain it will need help such as when the AV’s intended path is obstructed (e.g construction blockages or detours) or if it needs help identifying an object,” she wrote. “Remote assistance is in session about 2-4% of the time the AV is on the road, which is minimal, and in those cases the RA advisor is providing wayfinding intel to the AV, not controlling it remotely.”

CNBC also asked Cruise for information about typical response time for remote operations, and how remote assistance workers at Cruise are trained.

“More than 98% of sessions are answered within 3 seconds,” the spokesperson said.

She added, “RA advisors undergo a background check and driving record check and must complete two weeks of comprehensive training prior to starting, consisting of classroom training, scenario-based exercises, live shadowing and knowledge-based assessments. Advisors also receive ongoing training and undergo supplemental training whenever there is a new feature or update. Regular reviews, refreshers and audits are conducted to ensure high performance.”

As far as the ratio of remote assistance advisors to driverless vehicles on the road, the Cruise spokesperson said, “During driverless operations there was roughly 1 remote assistant agent for every 15-20 driverless AVs.”

George Mason University professor and autonomous systems expert Missy Cummings, who was previously a safety advisor to the federal vehicle safety agency (NHTSA), told CNBC that whether or not the public still considers Cruise vehicles self-driving, it has been an “industry standard” for humans to be on call, monitoring the operations of drones, robotics, and now autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles.

“I start to get concerned,” she said, “about how we’re using humans when we are using them. In other domains, we’ve seen issues where, for example, an air traffic controller maybe fell asleep on the job.”

Cummings also said it would be very important to understand whether Cruise vehicles involved in any collisions — especially in the October pedestrian collision — called back to remote operations for help. “I would like to know whether a human was notified at all and what the human’s actions were in the remote operations center.”

Cruise declined to say whether the October 2 incident triggered a remote assistant call, whether a human advisor made decisions to authorize the vehicle’s movement, or whether any Cruise employee had called 911.

The company spokesperson said, “We have initiated third-party reviews of the October 2 incident and are working with NHTSA on their investigation as well. In respect of those processes, we will await the findings of those reviews before commenting further.”

GM said last month that the company has lost roughly $1.9 billion on Cruise in the first nine months of this year, including $732 million in the third quarter alone.

Technology

IBM tops third-quarter estimates and lifts guidance, but stock drops

Published

37 mins ago

October 22, 2025

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IBM tops third-quarter estimates and lifts guidance, but stock drops

Chairman, President and CEO of IBM Arvind Krishna attends the 55th annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 22, 2025.

Yves Herman | Reuters

IBM reported third-quarter results that topped Wall Street estimates and lifted its guidance, citing ongoing artificial intelligence tailwinds. Still, the stock dropped 5% in extended trading.

Here’s how the company performed versus LSEG estimates:

Earnings per share: $2.65 adjusted vs. $2.45 expected
Revenue: $16.33 billion vs. $16.09 billion expected.

Revenue increased 9% from about $15 billion in the year-ago period, IBM said. The company reported net income of $1.74 billion, or $1.84 per share, after recording a loss of $330 million, or 36 cents per share, a year earlier. The results from last year included the impact of a $2.7 billion pension settlement charge.

“Clients globally continue to leverage our technology and domain expertise to drive productivity in their operations and deliver real business value with AI,” CEO Arvind Krishna said in release.

IBM upped its revenue guidance and said it now expects “more than” 5% revenue growth, up from “at least” 5%. Free cash flow for the year is expected to hit $14 billion, up from a $13.5 billion estimate last quarter.

Krishna also said the company’s AI book of business has surpassed $9.5 million, up from $7.5 billion during the second quarter.

Like many technology companies, IBM has harnessed AI to streamline productivity and slash costs. In May, Krishna told the Wall Street Journal that it replaced 200 human resources roles.

IBM’s software revenue rose 10% to $7.21 billion, meeting a StreetAccount estimate. Consulting revenue totaled $5.3 billion, surpassing a $5.24 billion projection.

Infrastructure, which includes its mainframe computers business, jumped 17% to $3.6 billion.

IBM’s board also approved a $1.68 per share quarterly dividend.

Technology

Amazon introduces ‘Blue Jay’ warehouse robot that performs multiple tasks at once

Published

4 hours ago

October 22, 2025

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Amazon introduces 'Blue Jay' warehouse robot that performs multiple tasks at once

Amazon on Wednesday unveiled a new robotic system that’s capable of performing multiple tasks at once in the company’s warehouses.

The system, called Blue Jay, is made up of a series of robotic arms that are suspended from a conveyor belt-like track. Those arms are tipped with suction-cup devices that allow them to grab items of varying shapes and sizes.

Blue Jay combines “what used to be three separate robotic stations into one streamlined workplace that can pick, sort, and consolidate in a single place,” Amazon said in a blog.

The robotic system’s goal is to assist employees with otherwise strenuous tasks “while creating greater efficiency in less physical space,” the company said.

Amazon is testing Blue Jay at one of its warehouses in South Carolina. So far, the company has observed that the system is able to pick, pack, stow and consolidate “approximately 75% of items we store at our sites.”

Blue Jay joins a growing fleet of robotic machinery being deployed across Amazon’s legions of warehouses. Over the past several years, Amazon has debuted robots capable of handling different tasks, ranging from removing items from shelves to sorting boxes. In May, it debuted “Vulcan,” a robotic system that has a sense of touch.

Amazon’s warehouse automation efforts were largely jumpstarted by its $775 million acquisition of Kiva Systems in 2012.

Applied Digital signs $5 billion AI factory lease with U.S. based hyperscaler

Published

4 hours ago

October 22, 2025

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Applied Digital signs billion AI factory lease with U.S. based hyperscaler

Applied Digital CEO on $5 billion AI infrastructure lease with U.S.-based hyperscaler

Applied Digital said on Wednesday that it signed a $5 billion infrastructure lease agreement with a U.S. hyperscaler.

Shares of the data center company dropped more than 7% following the announcement, continuing a recent slumped that’s sent the stock down over 20% in the past week. The stock has still almost quadrupled this year.

The lease announced on Wednesday is for about 15 years and will deliver 200 megawatts of capacity at the company’s Polaris Forge 2 campus in North Dakota. It brings the company’s total leased capacity to 600 megawatts at its two Polaris Forge campuses.

Across the tech industry, the major cloud providers and other internet giants are rapidly investing in artificial intelligence infrastructure and announcing plans for massive new data centers to handle an expected surge in demand. Applied Digital didn’t name its partner for the latest agreement, just disclosing that it’s an “investment grade hyperscaler.”

In an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street,” CEO Wes Cummins said the five U.S. hyperscalers are Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, Amazon and Google, “so that’s really who we’re targeting.” He said the tenant for the first lease was CoreWeave.

“We started down this path a couple years ago and we stubbed our toe a few times, but I think we’ve really dialed in the process of the ability to build at scale,” Cummins said, adding that the company has a 4 gigawatt “active pipeline.”

In June, Applied Digital announced two long-term lease agreements with CoreWeave for 250 megawatts of capacity. The company said it expects $7 billion in rental revenue over 15 years, and the shares soared 48% on that news.

Applied Digital also secured $5 billion in infrastructure funding from Macquarie Asset Management earlier this month.

“We believe Polaris Forge 2 builds on that momentum, reflecting the strength of our partnerships and the speed at which we’re reshaping the AI infrastructure landscape,” Cummins said in Wednesday’s release.