ClaimsRodney Brooks

“Taking many SF rides at night, fully driverless.”

Rodney Brooks, on X 7 June 2023 Post by @rodneyabrooks on X, 2023-06-07 (X)

Factual Technology

Rodney Brooks has taken many fully driverless Cruise rides at night in San Francisco.

Mostly true True in substance, wrong in a detail.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

What would count as true or false

Judge as of 2023-06-07. True: by that date, Brooks had taken many (more than a handful) Cruise rides in San Francisco at night with no safety driver in the vehicle. Mostly true: he took several such rides, with a minor detail off, for example some rides were in the evening or the count was modest. Mixed: some rides were fully driverless but many had a safety driver. Mostly false: he took only one or two driverless rides, or the rides were not driverless. False: he took no fully driverless Cruise rides in SF. Brooks's own contemporaneous accounts (blog or social posts with ride details) count as evidence, along with corroboration that Cruise was offering public fully driverless night rides in SF at that time.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (4)

  1. E1 No front seat occupants; adventures in autonomous ride services rodneybrooks.com (Rodney Brooks blog) · 29 May 2022 Own record

    “Recently, just after 10:30pm on Thursday May 26th, I took my first rides, three of them over a 90 minute period, in Cruise vehicles, with no front seat occupants”

  2. E2 Predictions Scorecard, 2023 January 01 rodneybrooks.com (Rodney Brooks blog) · 1 January 2023 Own record

    “Back in May, on this blog, I reported my experience taking a truly driverless taxi service three times in one evening in San Francisco.”

  3. E3 Cruise robotaxis now run 24-7 in San Francisco, public access ... CNBC · 25 April 2023

    “The Cruise service is open to paying members of the public from 10 p.m. to 5:30am in the Northwest part of San Francisco, Cruise confirmed.”

  4. E4 Autonomous Vehicles 2023, Part I rodneybrooks.com (Rodney Brooks blog) · 21 October 2023 Own record

    “I now regularly (more than once a week) ride in Cruise vehicles in San Francisco and have tweeted about it.”

Reasoning

Brooks's blog post from May 2022 says that after 10:30pm on May 26 he took three Cruise rides in San Francisco with no front-seat occupants (E1), and he described the same rides again in January 2023 (E2). CNBC independently confirms that Cruise's robotaxi service was open to paying members of the public at night in part of San Francisco by April 2023 (E3). Brooks's October 2023 post says he now rides regularly (E4), but it is dated after June 7, 2023 and does not say when that began. The documented count before the judging date is therefore three night rides, not clearly "many," which fits mostly true under the criteria.

Cite this claim

Rodney Brooks, “Rodney Brooks has taken many fully driverless Cruise rides at night in San Francisco.” (said 7 June 2023). Verdict: mostly true. Reliability API, claim c_3b1ab96cf3fe, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_3b1ab96cf3fe

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

For Rodney Brooks, or someone speaking for them: a correction or counter-evidence. Replies are read before anything is shown; an approved reply shows your name, role, date, statement and link. Your email address is never shown and is deleted 30 days after the decision (privacy).

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  2. Mixed Factual 29 September 2024
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  3. Mostly true Factual 29 September 2024
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  4. Mostly true Factual 1 January 2024
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  5. Resolved true Factual 22 June 2023
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All of them

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