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

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

#221

Post by pjc50 »

brilliantcode wrote: post #37

This is really worrying for Uber. It's supposedly burning 2 billion dollars a year. It doesn't own any fleet of vehicles or it's drivers. Neither is there a sustainable cost savings that doesn't involve lighting pile of cash on fire. It desperately needs driverless cars before Tesla and Google kills their business off. Now Uber has finally hit a regulatory wall which it won't be able to pay off. It's likely to hit mo…

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/trump-advisers-elon-musk-...

Uber have the ear of the president-elect. That's worth quite a lot in terms of being able to ignore regulations.

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

#222

Post by amelius »

return0 wrote: post #215
stuckagain wrote: post #3

Self-driving Uber car blows red signal at crosswalk in SF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CdJ4oae8f4

There should be special fines for self-driving cars making errors. It would force companies to be more careful and lead to better engineering. Also, competing manufacturers could "turn in" to police other manufacturer's cars that misbehave.

Also, any changes to the software run on self-driving cars should be stored in an "escrow" service for at least X months before it is uploaded (preferably by an independent party) to the cars, to allow for sufficient testing.

We don't want to end up in the situation where car manufacturers make quick updates to cover flaws.

If the software is broken, the cars should be grounded, the software should be fixed and tested for at least X hours of driving.

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

#223

Post by throwaway998127 »

dmix wrote: post #142
krasin wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

> And from whom do you expect this data will come from?

If they have that much money, they can build their own test city and populate it with volunteers. I'll be thrilled to see Travis Kalanick walk over the mock street 100x per day while the cars are being tested.

> 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.

That worked out splendidly for Air France flight 447 and many others.

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

#224

Post by mcintyre1994 »

snowmaker wrote: post #51

I recommend reading the actual letter from the DMV. It's impressively well-written, balanced, and thoughtful about autonomous technology. I was not expecting a response like that from the government.

As an outside observer, California seem to be dealing with the whole self-driving car matter really sensibly.

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

#225

Post by StavrosK »

placeybordeaux wrote: post #172
MichaelBurge wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

What kind of bizarre argument are you making?

That if you follow enough laws, it doesn't matter if you break some.

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

#226

Post by pjc50 »

ijustdontgetit wrote: post #68
goalieca wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber exemplifies the libertarian / anarchist subculture in tech. It seems to be a winning strategy for them so far. Edit: to clarify my position. This is why software will never be regarded as an engineering profession. There is a complete disregard for everything that would make us a profession. I'm saddened with the way the world has gone in 2016. It's like we rebelled against adulthood on a global scale.

So I have an off topic question? I originally got into tech because I hate my life and thought that tech was this outlet that could actually make some change. I come from a world of violence and abuse and never really cared for the powers that be. Tech seemed like the answer. So my question to the people who don't feel this way: why are you in tech? Serious question. Tech only seems interesting because you can move f…

Terry Pratchett wrote in the forward to his books that he became an author because it was indoor work with no heavy lifting.

Similarly, I got into tech because I was a smart kid who was good with computers and so it's a well paying field that I find easy and enjoyable. I'm also someone who's always been very much "within the system" and therefore try to be aware of my privileges. Don't underestimate the value of "house with kids and work within the system". Plenty of refugees dying on beaches for the possibility of a chance of maybe having that. Even within the comfortable West, it looks a lot more attractive when you're closer to 40 than 30.

Mind you, the reason I didn't go into CS research when I might have had the opportunity was because it was very obviously so much of a dead end; at least with startups there's a chance of people using your product.

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

#227

Post by andygates »

stickfigure wrote: post #163
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%…

these cars running red lights I watched quite the opposite problem the other day. Uber self-driving car pulled up to a red light on a busy intersection, in the left turn lane. The light turned green. I could tell that the car was in self-driving mode because it didn't step into the intersection like humans would do - not even slightly. The opposing traffic never let up enough to make a left turn, so the car stayed pu…

The Goog mentioned in one of their progress reports that this was a thing, and that they'd be tweaking their code to nose forward the way humans do.

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

#228

Post by rfrey »

Shank wrote: post #202
cmurf wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans do this also. It makes me wonder what the driver did before left turn arrows were common. In driver's ed, i was tought to pull into the intersection blocking the right lane of perpendicular traffic (to my left), the lane just after the crosswalk. A surprising number of people don't pull up at all.

As a new driver, I would much, much rather play it safe if I'm unfamiliar with the intersection & traffic flow than pull out. Does it seem silly to you? Probably. To me? No. I don't want to be caught in an intersection that I'm not supposed to be in when the light turns red.

In Toronto where I live, you'd better pack a lunch if you have any left turns on your route. Probably supper, too.

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

#230

Post by geofft »

djrogers wrote: post #154
geofft wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody, until someone gets hurt. It's a valid political position to believe that people don't need government regulation (laws) to behave themselves, not make mistakes, and not take risks that might lead to mistakes. It's the libertarian/anarchist viewpoint, as mentioned. But that's not how the government in San Francisco, California, or the US works. Those of us who don't hold to the libertarian or anarchist positio…

> It's the libertarian/anarchist viewpoint That's about as coherent a statement as 'it's the progressive/communist viewpoint' There is a huge gap between Zero Government anarchism and the belief that government authority should be limited so it does not grow to oppress.

Sorry, that phrasing was unclear; my intention was that this one viewpoint is shared by libertarianism and anarchism, which, yes, are two quite different philosophies as a whole. (Although you may well disagree with that rephrasing.) I was referencing the post above that said "libertarian / anarchist subculture", which I'm guessing was meant similarly.
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