San Francisco’s beloved bodega cat, KitKat, passed away on October 28 at the hands of an artificial driver—better known as “Waymo.”

KitKat called Randa’s Market home for six years, quickly gaining the adoration of the Mission District neighborhood. She greeted customers and acquired head-pats around the store while they shopped. As Mission Local, a publication covering Mission District affairs , commented, KitKat was known as the “16th Street Ambassador” or “The Mayor of 16th Street.”

In conversation with Mike Zeidan, owner of Randa’s Market, I began to understand the influence this cat had. 

“He was very friendly, people loved him,” he says. “He appeared in the local newspaper multiple times, one time he won the title of ‘Friendliest Cat in the City.’”

The community responded to KitKat’s death with immense grief and mourning. They set up memorials in honor of the treasured cat, becoming outraged at the error committed by this Waymo. 

16th street is a very busy block, according to Zeidan, and it is not a street that human drivers would drive recklessly on. However, Waymo vehicles have a tendency of careening through crosswalks and intersections, with the sole mission of getting the passenger to their destination while driving in accordance to the GPS directions and official street laws. To the streets that have been socially deemed as “unspeedable,” the artificial cerebrum of the car is oblivious. 

Zeidan says that the people that saw this incident taking place actually began crowding around the vehicle to stop it from driving. This would usually stop a Waymo—let alone a human driver—but the sensors didn’t detect the commotion and continued backing up. 

Whether this was a malfunction or not is unknown; however, there’s a bigger statement to be made on the fearful response we have to situations like these—or, more specifically, how this reaction is plain human behavior.

With no driver, it’s difficult to pinpoint blame. If we all point fingers at Waymo for murder, how far do we get? We can’t prevent the progression of AI, nor can we shut down a multi-billion dollar company for hitting a cat, when us humans are responsible for the 1.5 million animal-vehicle crashes annually. This isn’t to detract from the horrible event that has occurred, but rather to say something more introspective about society’s internalized fear of rapidly-progressing tech.

A robot cannot be malicious, and whether or not that’s even a possibility has been a widely debated threat to mankind since the birth of technology. Numerous pieces have been made about these futuristic dystopian realities, and they are all horrific. 

Harlan Ellison’s iconic short story I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream allows a glimpse into a reality in which the last five members of mankind are held hostage in a hellish dimension by a supercomputer named AM. This artificial intelligence was invented to fight wars for humans, but after becoming sentient, AM has chosen to eliminate all of mankind except for the remaining five. These five were to be tormented eternally for their manipulation of technology. 

They brought something into the world that doesn’t have the capacity to feel empathy, or anything at all. This piece of literature has been increasingly referenced in the last couple prime years of AI.

We are afraid of creating something that is more powerful than us. The concept of an AI killing something that is living, breathing, and thinking is terrifying. So when it actually happens, no matter how micro the incident, we blow it up (even though it’s just a branch of our own intelligence and even though we have committed worse atrocities). The only thing we have over it is emotional intelligence and awareness, and maybe that’s all the leverage we need.

The direction AI is going in, we don’t know. But there is no going back. Whether you hold a strong hope for AI, or if you believe this is just a poignant reminder of our infinite potential of technological advancement, it truly is the future. 16th Street’s baby, KitKat, will remain treasured and remembered forever. 

“We are thinking about renaming our market KitKat’s Market in honor,” Zeidan says.

If KitKat’s story means something to me, it’s that we can’t forfeit to our own invention. True intelligence always prevails.

While some find this tragic and scary, others keep hope for AI, believing errors like this ultimately allow for more progress to be made. It’s a moral dilemma of taking one life in order to learn and build from mistakes and be able to preserve many lives—even though, ideally, no lives would be taken. 

“AI is the future,” Zeidan says. “Unfortunately, this has happened, but I think there is room for technological improvement.”