Live data from Hacker News

An AI dashcam app designed to rate every driver

spectrum.ieee.org

71–80 of 109 posts

Re: An AI dashcam app designed to rate every driver

#71
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine a lot of applications for these types of systems: identifying undercover traffic police cars, finding whether someone is following you, identifying friend's cars (similar to FB's "Share your location") People would love such systems (and I'm afraid our privacy is gone for good).

This debate happens on HN again and again, but still: what privacy are you talking about in public space? Nobody has a problem with one person with a dashcam — why suddenly connecting these dashcams to a network that shares information is a problem?

Let just call it mass surveillance

Re: An AI dashcam app designed to rate every driver

#72
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine a lot of applications for these types of systems: identifying undercover traffic police cars, finding whether someone is following you, identifying friend's cars (similar to FB's "Share your location") People would love such systems (and I'm afraid our privacy is gone for good).

This debate happens on HN again and again, but still: what privacy are you talking about in public space? Nobody has a problem with one person with a dashcam — why suddenly connecting these dashcams to a network that shares information is a problem?

> This debate happens on HN again and again, but still: what privacy are you talking about in public space? Nobody has a problem with one person with a dashcam

If I'm not that one person I'd have a problem with that.

> why suddenly connecting these dashcams to a network that shares information is a problem?

Switching from dash cams to police helps a bit. I think most people would be okay with one (or a handful) of police officers randomly walking through their neighborhood. Most locales would say it's a good thing.

Now take that to the extreme and have an officer every 10 steps, looking around in every direction, and writing down everything that's happening. Still a good idea?

Re: An AI dashcam app designed to rate every driver

#73
post #40

The real purpose of this app isn't the rating system, that's just the hook to get people to run this app and point the camera out their dashboards. The real purpose is to crowdsource collecting data about the drivers on the road in order to sell that data to interested parties.

It really sounds like a slapped on excuse for the next incarnation of the data collection biz. How would they generate revenue if not by selling the collected data to 3rd parties? Because imo that is the most straightforward option. Missing this bit entirely in the article is disingenuous and concerning. I'm not too sure about opaque code rating drivers either, though people might be ok with it.

Re: An AI dashcam app designed to rate every driver

#74
post #40

The real purpose of this app isn't the rating system, that's just the hook to get people to run this app and point the camera out their dashboards. The real purpose is to crowdsource collecting data about the drivers on the road in order to sell that data to interested parties.

Meh, all the purposes are real. It's a win-win. Get warned of idiots, collect data that will be useful to insurers (and probably to self driving cars too, I can imagine Google cars giving detected hotheads a wide berth). I can see one group of people having a legit beef with this though: car rental companies. One idiot behind the wheel, and their fleet car might as well go straight to scrap.

"One idiot behind the wheel, and their fleet car might as well go straight to scrap."

Unless, of course, they pay this nice fee to have their fleet cars whitelisted in the app, call it "bad driver protection money"!

Re: An AI dashcam app designed to rate every driver

#75
post #27

I've considered building something like this for bikes. For those who aren't cyclists, there are already informal networks of people who share helmet-cam videos of bad driving behaviour, with people who attempt to read license plates etc

In my experience as both a cyclist and a driver in the Bay Area, I have no interest in the opinions of other cyclists on driver behavior. Cyclists largely disregard the rules of the road and then blame drivers. As a driver, I have been at the receiving end of abusive gestures and language even when following the law. In one case, I yielded to a bicyclist who was in blatant violation of the law[0], because failure to…

>As a cyclist, I have given up trying to educate my fellow cyclists, and generally won't ride with others anymore.

I don't know about the bay area, but in my city you can't really group ride, bike roads are single lanes. Yet people ride side by side all the time.

Personally, I found the best way to change the culture is to show an example. There is clearly an ongoing bicycle boom, and it shows many just follow the customs e.g. dashing through reds is acceptable (which is debatable) but it quickly turns out stopping for 20 seconds is not that big of a problem. It is quite interesting though, the same people would never do that in a car.

Re: An AI dashcam app designed to rate every driver

#76
In the UK a few years ago there were reports of people's license plate numbers being duplicated and stuck onto vehicles that matched the genuine vehicle's description and then used for various crimes, like filling up with petrol and driving off without paying.

This tech would be susceptible in a similar manner - stolen vehicle goes out and drives badly etc. etc. The only identifier would be the licence plate. How about using their phone account as the identifier rather than the vehicle?

Anyway sounds like an idea ripe for misuse and "feature creep".

Re: An AI dashcam app designed to rate every driver

#77
post #62
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely at the moment . That stops being okay once amber alerts start to be misused.

I mean, it's been 20 years, and people seem to be using them sensibly still. I'm not convinced their misuse is a given.

Not a given, but mass surveillance might change the equation.

Re: An AI dashcam app designed to rate every driver

#78
post #40

The real purpose of this app isn't the rating system, that's just the hook to get people to run this app and point the camera out their dashboards. The real purpose is to crowdsource collecting data about the drivers on the road in order to sell that data to interested parties.

Meh, all the purposes are real. It's a win-win. Get warned of idiots, collect data that will be useful to insurers (and probably to self driving cars too, I can imagine Google cars giving detected hotheads a wide berth). I can see one group of people having a legit beef with this though: car rental companies. One idiot behind the wheel, and their fleet car might as well go straight to scrap.

Maybe there'll be an opportunity to drill down in the data. There's a huge wide spectrum of people who suck at driving (senile old people, oblivious soccer mom, boy-racer, etc) and I would be very surprised if they're all roughly equivalent.

Re: An AI dashcam app designed to rate every driver

#79
post #40

The real purpose of this app isn't the rating system, that's just the hook to get people to run this app and point the camera out their dashboards. The real purpose is to crowdsource collecting data about the drivers on the road in order to sell that data to interested parties.

Meh, all the purposes are real. It's a win-win. Get warned of idiots, collect data that will be useful to insurers (and probably to self driving cars too, I can imagine Google cars giving detected hotheads a wide berth). I can see one group of people having a legit beef with this though: car rental companies. One idiot behind the wheel, and their fleet car might as well go straight to scrap.

That's imagining this system in the most perfect light: shiny, new and not gamed.

The opportunities for misinformation and asymmetricality are huge. Don't like someone? Clone their license plate for a day and drive like an ass. How could you ever prove your innocence?

Loan your car to a friend and they could tarnish your reputation. It would make it inhibitive to share vehicles.

This is technology that drives us farther apart as people in favor of a few insurance companies making even more profit than they do already. Think critically.

It would also give police even more excuses to profile innocent people.

If you want people to drive more safely, then think up ways to get more people to drive more safely. Don't expand the surveillance mechanism to every moving vehicle.

Re: An AI dashcam app designed to rate every driver

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, so if I record a particular driver being an asshole on the street and then put this recording on Youtube as an individual, I would be wrong?

Absolutely, since it would amount to trial by media, where a person is found guilty / slandered as an asshole with no avenue to defend his position / state his case. What if he was driving like an asshole because he was speeding to the hospital or similar reasons?

Exactly. The crux of prejudice is that it makes people form an opinion before they have facts a.k.a. context. A lot of things are not what they seem at first and because people respond to well to "Occam's Razor," they choose the laziest explanation and penalize people they don't know.

A real-life example: my friend was dating a woman whose brother got in an accident. After receiving painkillers, he became addicted to them (an old story at this point). As he weened himself off of them, taking responsibility, my friend would drive him to get methadone a few times a week. A system that uses information from this one would label my friend an addict because he was so often seen driving to or parked at the rehab clinic. When in fact, my friend was a charitable, stand-up guy helping out a soon-to-be family member recover and become a stronger, productive member of society.

Post reply on HN