Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 249 posts

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#141

Post by andrewguenther »

nodesocket wrote: post #89
JamilD wrote: post #15

I want self-driving cars to happen as quickly as possible, but Uber seems like they were extremely reckless and negligent here. Why not apply for a permit and stay on the safe side? And with at least two reported incidents of these cars running red lights, it seems like driver training and attentiveness was lacking. If the software wasn't ready, fine, but you have to be aware of that and train your drivers to be 100%…

The real question is how hard is this permit to obtain? I'm also guessing the permit limits Uber from doing what they want completely.

So that's a reason to just ignore it?

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#142

Post by dmix »

krasin wrote: post #83
rgarrett88 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That said, I don't like the aggressive gambling with pedestrians lifes like Uber or Tesla do. We gamble with pedestrian's lives every time we get in a car. No one has seen how these vehicles perform in real world scenarios. It seems very possible they could perform better than humans on average.

My guess is that the levels of these systems will differ. Some systems will be better than humans (on average), and some systems will be worse. The gamble I mention is that Uber and Tesla are putting too many machines on the road at once without having good priors for their current level of competence.

> The gamble I mention is that Uber and Tesla are putting too many machines on the road at once without having good priors for their current level of competence.

And from whom do you expect this data will come from? How many is too many? Why?

As far as I'm concerned as long as a human can take control at a seconds notice, the risk here is very much overblown.

I haven't seen an instance where a company wasn't taking reasonable precautions and was acting foolishly. I'd love to be proven otherwise...

There's a reason why companies waited until 2016 to start putting these on public roads. And even then they are usually limited like Teslas. They are taking it slowly like responsible engineers...

Now that full data capture and machine learning is being added pretty much every ride is contributing to the quality of these systems.

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#143

Post by erlehmann_ »

automatwon wrote: post #132
JamilD wrote: post #15

I want self-driving cars to happen as quickly as possible, but Uber seems like they were extremely reckless and negligent here. Why not apply for a permit and stay on the safe side? And with at least two reported incidents of these cars running red lights, it seems like driver training and attentiveness was lacking. If the software wasn't ready, fine, but you have to be aware of that and train your drivers to be 100%…

Uber seems like they were extremely reckless YES. I live 10 feet away from the garage. I've noticed over the past few months that they've been ramping in typical startup fashion: hockey stick growth. After reading about Lyft's CEO, a narrative of "nice guys finishing last", I started realizing how unscrupulous Uber is. Sadly, cut-throat businesses win. I recently took an Uber ride, where the driver was an un-retired…

If you evaluate Uber like that, why do you take Uber rides?

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#144

Post by MichaelBurge »

kinkdr wrote: post #131
JamilD wrote: post #15

I want self-driving cars to happen as quickly as possible, but Uber seems like they were extremely reckless and negligent here. Why not apply for a permit and stay on the safe side? And with at least two reported incidents of these cars running red lights, it seems like driver training and attentiveness was lacking. If the software wasn't ready, fine, but you have to be aware of that and train your drivers to be 100%…

> Why not apply for a permit and stay on the safe side? When did Uber obey the law? Why would they start now? Edit: Apologies for my tone, but Uber has demonstrated quite a few times in the past that they don't have any respect for the law.

> When did Uber obey the law?

In absolute numbers, their company probably follows more laws than most people on this forum, since they operate in many different jurisdictions. It wouldn't surprise me if the average HN commenter committed more felonies than the average Uber executive, or of Uber as a whole.

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#145

Post by [deleted] »

MichaelBurge wrote: post #144
kinkdr wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not apply for a permit and stay on the safe side? When did Uber obey the law? Why would they start now? Edit: Apologies for my tone, but Uber has demonstrated quite a few times in the past that they don't have any respect for the law.

> When did Uber obey the law? In absolute numbers, their company probably follows more laws than most people on this forum, since they operate in many different jurisdictions. It wouldn't surprise me if the average HN commenter committed more felonies than the average Uber executive, or of Uber as a whole.

[deleted]

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#146

Post by chao- »

nodesocket wrote: post #89
JamilD wrote: post #15

I want self-driving cars to happen as quickly as possible, but Uber seems like they were extremely reckless and negligent here. Why not apply for a permit and stay on the safe side? And with at least two reported incidents of these cars running red lights, it seems like driver training and attentiveness was lacking. If the software wasn't ready, fine, but you have to be aware of that and train your drivers to be 100%…

The real question is how hard is this permit to obtain? I'm also guessing the permit limits Uber from doing what they want completely.

> I'm also guessing the permit limits Uber from doing what they want completely.

Yes, it is in fact a key feature of laws and statutes that they (sometimes) keep people from just doing whatever they want.

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#147

Post by djrogers »

kuschku wrote: post #133
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it a fun fact that throughout history, (barring the morally exceptional[0]) each human only ever chose to do things that were in their best interest. However, since humans existed, we have continually seen a consistent improvement[1] in the average human's life. [0] Funny thing about the morally exceptional: I can't think of any which continue to improve our current day-to-day lives. [1] Improvement is subjecti…

Regardimg [0]: The entire open source industy. Voluntary fire brigades. And so on. I'm surprised you ignore all those so easily.

> Voluntary fire brigades.

It's entirely rational to join a VFD out of self interest.

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#148

Post by rgbrenner »

deathanatos wrote: post #136
greglindahl wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being ready to take the helm at any time is required by law, at this point. It applies to Google's test cars, to Tesla Autopilot, etc.

Are Google's / Waymo's vehicles not steering-wheel and pedal free? E.g., go to Waymo's own site here[1], scroll to "2015 World’s first fully self-driving ride on public roads", and watch the video: they give, if I'm not mistaken, a blind man a ride in a steering-wheel-free, pedals-free autonomous vehicle on public roads, in Texas. Now, granted, the original article is about the CA DMV, but I've seen vehicles that are…

even though those cars are steering wheel and pedal free, a google employee is riding inside, with a laptop attached, and a big red stop button. Here's an image:

http://www.mycoolbin.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Googles-...

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#149

Post by 1024core »

fudged71 wrote: post #140
JamilD wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Updated Uber statement: "This incident was due to human error. This is why we believe so much in making the roads safer by building self-driving Ubers. This vehicle was not part of the pilot and was not carrying customers. The driver involved has been suspended while we continue to investigate." https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident...

Why would an employee/contractor be suspended for a minor traffic violation? Nobody was hurt. I'd rather they talk about taking steps to train the people and algorithms better

Did you actually see the video? The car drove through the red light long (in relative terms) after the signal turned red. That an accident didn't happen is sheer luck.

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#150

Post by zbrozek »

jacobolus wrote: post #38
scarmig wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it learned a bit too much from San Francisco drivers?

If it uses Uber drivers for training, heaven help us: I’ve seen illegal U-turns, constant double parking, reversing down 1-way streets, moving right turns through red lights, sudden stops, speeding 25+ mph over the legal limit, lane changes in intersections, lots of turning without signals, lack of proper yielding to obvious pedestrians, cyclists nearly side-swiped, etc. (Some subset of) Uber drivers are one of the w…

An Uber driver deliberately pushed me (a cyclist) out of the way with the hood of his car when I tried to take a picture of him parking on an expressway. I filed a police report and a complaint with Uber, but nothing came of it.
Post reply on HN