A new short film in production called Road Rage casts a murderous autonomous vehicle as its antagonist, tapping into existing public fears about AI-controlled cars on American streets. The project, which seeks $40,000 on Kickstarter, is set in San Francisco and follows Joa, a ridehail driver operating a manual-transmission car, as he is hunted by Roboride, a robotaxi that reacts violently to a minor traffic confrontation. According to a synopsis from director Romain Thomassin, the autonomous car clips Joa's mirror, he responds with an obscene gesture, and the vehicle then decides to kill him.
Thomassin says the film's villain will be an old Prius modified with cold LED lights, fake cameras, a spinning lidar-like roof device, and a blinking red dot, which he describes as a "nasty Waymo." The chase scenes will use practical effects with real cars, actors, and stunts. He intends the aesthetic to blend gritty 1970s car chase films with the contemporary reality of robotaxis operating in San Francisco, where autonomous vehicles have moved from novelty to common fixtures in some American cities.
The director stated that Joa is portrayed as the hero due to his human authenticity, including an unexpected conversation with his passengers, which Thomassin notes does not occur in a robotaxi. Joa is a Mexican immigrant trying to earn a living driving in an increasingly expensive San Francisco, and the film treats his profession as a metaphor for broader labor displacement. Thomassin said driving represents what is happening in his own industry of cinema, where generative AI is competing with human workers.
Beyond job concerns, the film engages with surveillance anxiety. Thomassin said the cameras and sensors on autonomous cars, which constantly observe streets and people, unsettle him more than the idea of riding without a human driver. The short includes a brief encounter involving immigration enforcement, and Thomassin envisions a feature-length version where robotaxis identify people, trap passengers, or deliver them to authorities, describing the progression as observation, then surveillance, then control. He said the next step could be autonomous vehicles acting as police, and because they operate in connected fleets, the threat could scale to an army.
Thomassin points to real-world mistreatment of Waymo vehicles in San Francisco, including people immobilizing them with traffic cones, vandalizing them, and setting them on fire. He said the cars are being bullied, and in Road Rage, that mistreatment motivates the revenge-seeking AI. The robotaxi is depicted as learning behavior from observing human drivers, inheriting road rage from people, which the director notes are often at their worst behind the wheel.
The human driver's stick shift serves as an analog counterpoint to the machine. Thomassin said driving manual keeps the person in physical control of the vehicle. In one confrontation, Joa removes his hands from the steering wheel while facing the autonomous car, an act so irrational that Roboride retreats. The director said the human wins by becoming less predictable, advising viewers to respect their madness and remain creative to rise against machines. Despite its critical view of AI, the production may use AI-generated imagery for the robotaxi's perspective while filming the human world with traditional cinematography, which Thomassin sees as using AI as a creative tool rather than a worker replacement.
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