One scene during the recent protests in Downtown Los Angeles against ICE raids was the torching of Waymo cars. This isn’t the first instance; in February last year, a Waymo car was torched in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

Setting vehicles on fire during chaotic situations is nothing new. Buses have been torched or vandalized after the city’s sports team won championships. While celebrating a victory is fine, destroying property doesn’t garner much public support.

In the current protests, torching Waymo cars may be a crime of opportunity: the vehicles are available, and protesters are angry. There may be other reasons why Waymo cars appeared to be targeted.

While ICE is the main target of the protests, many protesters also oppose the Felon’s return to power and the hard rightward shift towards supporting oligarchs and opposing inclusivity and science, even compared to his first term. For them, targeting Waymo represents more than mere vandalism; it’s an expression of anger against a system perceived as favoring corporate interests at the expense of human livelihoods.

Waymo cars are corporate-owned assets, unlike cars belonging to individual users. Being self-driven, Waymo cars take away business and jobs, whether it’s Uber and Lyft gig work or union jobs at transit agencies.

Waymo cars aren’t smart enough to avoid difficult situations or interact with others like humans, which help make them easy targets. Destroying property carries a much lighter criminal penalty than injuring or killing someone. With a regular private car, the risk of injuring someone is high because the driver would likely react physically to protect their own property. That situation doesn’t exist with autonomous cars that aren’t carrying passengers. While some may want to see protesters punished at the same level, no lawmaker or judge is likely to support that.

Waymo could be seen as a symbol of Silicon Valley’s toxic culture, focusing on increasing the wealth of the oligarchs while neglecting the poor. The Felon was backed by some Silicon Valley corporate leaders, like Elon Musk, among others promoting crypto and AI, trying to win support from the Felon for looser regulations. Autonomous vehicles, and earlier ride-hail services like Uber and Lyft, are also products of Silicon Valley, all seeking looser regulations to compete with established taxi cabs and public transit.

Autonomous vehicles and AI are attempting to gain a foothold in today’s marketplace, much like social media and ride-hailing services did a decade ago. These earlier products succeeded by initially offering superior, underpriced services, but eventually, they degraded the service and increased prices to boost profits. This process is known as “enshittification.” Given the history of enshittification at the expense of established industries and their workers, who cannot compete with venture capitalists, we should not be surprised by the pushback. Since robots will never be humans in a criminal justice sense, perhaps Silicon Valley should value human capital with the products they’re creating to address concerns about jobs and opportunities.