The short film “Road Rage” casts an autonomous vehicle as the villain in a chase set in San Francisco. Directed by Romain Thomassin, the film, which hopes to raise $40,000 for production on Kickstarter, pits Joa, a ride-hailing driver who drives a manual-transmission car, against an autonomous vehicle called Roboride. After Roboride lightly clips Joa’s mirror, a hand gesture from the driver prompts the vehicle to try to kill him.
The film combines classic car chases with today’s robotaxis. Roboride will be designed as an old Prius with cold LED lights, fake cameras, a lidar-like spinning device on its roof, a black body and a constantly flashing red dot. The chase will be filmed using real vehicles, actors and stunt performers.
According to Thomassin, robotaxis represent concerns such as artificial intelligence eliminating jobs, surveillance by major technology companies and machines taking over decisions previously made by humans. As a Mexican immigrant trying to make a living in an increasingly expensive San Francisco, Joa symbolizes drivers competing with robotaxis. The director also links this situation to competition from generative artificial intelligence in his own field.
The film also portrays autonomous vehicles’ constant monitoring of their surroundings with cameras and sensors as a dystopian threat. The story includes a brief encounter involving immigration enforcement. In a feature-length adaptation, Thomassin envisions a world in which vehicles could recognize people, trap passengers inside or take them directly to the authorities. The film’s ideas also include the threat posed by connected fleets, which could grow into a force extending beyond a single vehicle.
Thomassin also notes that incidents in San Francisco in which Waymo vehicles were stopped with traffic cones, painted, vandalized and set on fire have positioned robotaxis against people. In Road Rage, Roboride turns to revenge after learning the aggressive behavior it observes from human drivers.
Joa’s manual-transmission vehicle, meanwhile, represents human instinct and unpredictability in opposition to the machine. The film is considering using AI-generated images to show what Roboride sees, while filming the human driver’s world using traditional methods. Thomassin says he is not afraid of robotaxis and continues to use Waymo.
Why it matters
The film project moves the debate over autonomous vehicles beyond a purely technological issue and connects it to questions of livelihoods, surveillance and human control. This framework is particularly meaningful for drivers competing with robotaxis and for people discussing the impact of artificial intelligence on their own fields of work. In the story, the vehicle’s learning of aggressive behavior leaves open the question of safety and responsibility: Who will be responsible for the harm caused when a system imitates human behavior? The use of cameras, sensors and connected fleets as threats raises the question of the scale of surveillance beyond the behavior of a single vehicle. The project’s Kickstarter goal, meanwhile, shows that these ideas are being opened up for discussion through a film that is still in production.