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Should cars be fully driverless? No, says an MIT engineer and historian

news.mit.edu

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Re: Should cars be fully driverless? No, says an MIT engineer and historian

#41

Post by burkemw3 »

In most of the given examples, humans have little control of the environment. We are, in fact, trying to use autonomous vehicles to explore.

In the case of cars, humans can change the physical environment to meet the needs of the car. Additionally, the car may be able to avoid a situation that it knows it doesn't handle well (e.g. avoid complicated intersections).

In the one case of an environment where we have some controls (air travel), it is more difficult to "pull over" as compared to a car (as other commenters have noted).

Re: Should cars be fully driverless? No, says an MIT engineer and historian

#42

Post by sgibat »

aclissold wrote: post #40

On the topic of boredom and attention lapses while driving, I wonder if it would actually be made safer by being made more difficult, in contrast to the never-ending search for ease of use. Something that's difficult, mentally stimulating, and requires actual skill like a video game or musical instrument. Would there be more or less mistakes (collisions) if people were forced to be engaged 100% of the time in order t…

this is why many people prefer driving a manual.

Re: Should cars be fully driverless? No, says an MIT engineer and historian

#43

Post by TeMPOraL »

aclissold wrote: post #40

On the topic of boredom and attention lapses while driving, I wonder if it would actually be made safer by being made more difficult, in contrast to the never-ending search for ease of use. Something that's difficult, mentally stimulating, and requires actual skill like a video game or musical instrument. Would there be more or less mistakes (collisions) if people were forced to be engaged 100% of the time in order t…

> Would there be more or less mistakes (collisions) if people were forced to be engaged 100% of the time in order to operate the vehicle?

I think there would be less mistakes, but the problem is, you can't sustain the required level of engagement for long. 100% concentration for 15 minutes? Sure. 30? Yes. One hour? Maybe. Three hours? Probably not.

Though, come to think of it, one hour would probably be enough to cover like 95% cases of commuting.

Re: Should cars be fully driverless? No, says an MIT engineer and historian

#44

Post by paulsutter »

While the article doesn't actually use the word "never", neither does it hedge and say "anytime soon".

The central logic seems to be that humanity is starting from scratch building self driving cars, versus all the years of experience decades ago trying to automate spacecraft and submersibles.

Oddly, I reach entirely the opposite conclusion. The article reminds us that even decades ago, with rudimentary computers, engineers developed systems that landed men on the moon and returned them to earth.

This article has made it even easier for me to imagine a car taking a fully autonomous trip to a McDonald's drive through, given the state of deep/machine learning, low cost computers a million times faster, and big advances in sensors, Yes there will be a person supervising the car for a while, of course that's true. But it's only a matter of time before our children are surprised that humans were allowed to drive cars, causing millions of deaths.

Re: Should cars be fully driverless? No, says an MIT engineer and historian

#45

Post by TeMPOraL »

sandworm101 wrote: post #36
nemothekid wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an incredibly pedantic definition and has nothing to do with what Google is doing. Google's car has logged driverless hours - despite where a human can be sitting. Are you seriously implying that a human sitting in the driver seat is controlling the car without touching it? If its not driverless, how is the car navigating? Through psychic powers?

They are "driverless" from an internal software or technology perspective. The car is making itself move. But they are not driverless from an external/legal view. There is still a person in there that is held responsible for the safe operation of the vehicle. When things go wrong, that person will still be answerable a the driver. I seriously doubt Google is sending out "drivers" without proper licenses. Equally, I c…

In context of this discussion we're evaluating the technical drivelessness, not legal one, so Google cars and the hours they logged qualify.

Re: Should cars be fully driverless? No, says an MIT engineer and historian

#46

Post by Anechoic »

Zikes wrote: post #3

I must be missing something, because it seems like Mr. Mindell is saying cars shouldn't be fully driverless because they can't be. He cites numerous examples of other promised automation technologies that seem to have become a pipe dream over the past several decades. Except, Google's driverless cars have now logged over a million fully automated miles. It is a proven technology. These aren't exploratory machines goi…

Google's driverless cars have now logged over a million fully automated miles. It is a proven technology.

Not even Google engineers go that far - see this Tech Review article [0] from last years that talks about how Google's driverless cars can't handle snow, heavy rain, or its sensors being blinded by the sun.

Driverless cars may be coming, but it's still along way off.

[0] http://www.technologyreview.com/news/530276/hidden-obstacles...

Re: Should cars be fully driverless? No, says an MIT engineer and historian

#47

Post by burkemw3 »

sgibat wrote: post #42
aclissold wrote: post #40

On the topic of boredom and attention lapses while driving, I wonder if it would actually be made safer by being made more difficult, in contrast to the never-ending search for ease of use. Something that's difficult, mentally stimulating, and requires actual skill like a video game or musical instrument. Would there be more or less mistakes (collisions) if people were forced to be engaged 100% of the time in order t…

this is why many people prefer driving a manual.

Including me, so I tried to find some statistics to see if a manual was enough to focus on. I didn't find much.

I found one Swedish study that looked at automatic and manual transmissions affect on young and old drivers' ability to turn left across traffic [1]. It found a manual had little impact on the young driver, and older drivers performed worse.

I'm not sure turning left across traffic is a large enough sample of driving for me to be satisfied.

[1] http://acrs.org.au/files/arsrpe/Why%20drive%20manual%20-%20a...

Re: Should cars be fully driverless? No, says an MIT engineer and historian

#48

Post by snowwrestler »

bloaf wrote: post #39
snowwrestler wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how is the vexing situation resolved? Either the onboard computer must be able to manage 100% of all situations, or the human driver must have an option to take control to resolve it themselves. You can't have a car that makes human control impossible, and then gets itself into vexing situations. You'll be stuck there forever.

Is it impossible for a human to get a car permanently stuck? *edit: put another way, is it possible for a human driver to extricate a car from any situation?

Well the parent refers only to certain situations--those in which the robocar gets vexed and chooses to slow down or stop.

I would expect humans to be able to resolve those types of situations, since we rarely find humans sitting in perfectly working cars on the side of the road just because they are vexed.

Re: Should cars be fully driverless? No, says an MIT engineer and historian

#49

Post by ScottBurson »

sandworm101 wrote: post #21
TeMPOraL wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which only strenghtens the argument for self-driving cars. Hell, we even make those highly-trained professional aviators and astronauts depend on auto-pilots because it's much safer this way.

So long as the self-driving car can cover every situation. What doesn't work is a system that expects the human to sit idle for hundreds of hours, then suddenly throws him/her the wheel and jumps ship. (Like the autodrive system in that simpsons episode where homer becomes a trucker.)

Yes, I think this is the key point. We've already seen [0] that even trained pilots have trouble when thrown into the middle of an emergency situation that they don't understand how they got into.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447

Re: Should cars be fully driverless? No, says an MIT engineer and historian

#50

Post by sandworm101 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #45
sandworm101 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are "driverless" from an internal software or technology perspective. The car is making itself move. But they are not driverless from an external/legal view. There is still a person in there that is held responsible for the safe operation of the vehicle. When things go wrong, that person will still be answerable a the driver. I seriously doubt Google is sending out "drivers" without proper licenses. Equally, I c…

In context of this discussion we're evaluating the technical drivelessness, not legal one, so Google cars and the hours they logged qualify.

I'll take that under advisement so long as everyone on HN promises not to use "driverless" in the context of legal, ethical, or moral debates re google cars. The term is ubiquitous from Google no matter the context. It is their stated goal. Other companies fear any suggestion that they will field driveless cars anytime soon. I smell PR.
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