New ‘KnoWay’ robotaxis cause chaos in new Grand Theft Auto Online DLC

The latest expansion to Grand Theft Auto Online includes robotaxis from a fictional-yet-familiar institution dubbed “KnoWay,” whose sole intent appears to beryllium wreaking havoc.

A trailer released Friday shows KnoWay vans adorned with lidar sensors swerving done metropolis streets, wrecking different cars, and crashing done a billboard for the made up company.

While that’s each acold much chaotic and destructive than adjacent immoderate of the worst behaviour that Waymo’s robotaxis person been blameworthy of, the in-game autonomous vehicles nevertheless lucifer the company’s earlier-generation Chrysler Pacifica vans. The enlargement is called “A Safehouse successful the Hills” and is disposable starting December 10.

It’s not wide if the vans successful the trailer person been, successful existent Grand Theft Auto fashion, hijacked by playable characters, oregon if they’ve gone rogue. It seems apt it’s the latter, though, arsenic Rockstar Games says players volition beryllium encouraged to “stop the improvement of a wide surveillance web successful an all-new enactment packed adventure” arsenic portion of the DLC. (The trailer besides teases a storyline that involves an AI adjunct named “Haviland,” truthful the tech satellite successful wide appears to beryllium a portion of this peculiar storyline.)

Waymo has said it volition contradict authorities requests for the footage its vehicles seizure if those requests are “overly wide and unlawful.” But its robotaxis person nevertheless drawn disapproval for being portion of a increasing surveillance state. That vexation has contributed to the company’s vehicles becoming a people of aggregate instances of vandalism. Waymo SUVs person been burned, smashed, and had their tires slashed successful antithetic cities implicit the past fewer years.

Rockstar is intelligibly tapping into those aforesaid dynamics here, arsenic the tagline for KnoWay’s “autonomous hailing system” successful the crippled is: “We Kno wherever you’re going.” It’s not hard to ideate immoderate players of the DLC taking immoderate of their frustrations retired connected the virtual vehicles erstwhile the update is released aboriginal this month.

Waymo declined to comment.

At TechCrunch Disrupt successful October, Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana spoke out against the vandalism, saying her institution was “very focused connected moving with instrumentality enforcement to marque definite that we prosecute the radical who are committing these crimes against our fleet.”