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Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars

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Re: Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars

#251

Post by sytse »

nradov wrote: post #229
sytse wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be interesting to allow tele operations in this kind of scenario so the drunk, sleeping, underage, and disabled can benefit from self driving cars.

Our wireless communications infrastructure lacks the reliability and latency guarantees that would be necessary for remote operation.

The idea is that when there is an unexpected situation that car stops and the teleoperator would indicate the best path forward. The human would not drive like an RC car but more like a rally car navigator. This is for example mentioned in http://spectrum.ieee.org/transportation/self-driving/after-m... "Eventually, nuTonomy will transition to full autonomy with the option for teleoperation."

Re: Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars

#252

Post by HNaTTY »

To a large extent, my daily driving consists of going to the same 5-10 places. I'd like my car to watch me drive somewhere and then just do that, with minimal improvization. For example, in order to enter my driveway I have to swing wide into the oncoming lane to make the turn. When I drive to work I avoid the same potholes all the time. Pretty trivial to just record my driving once or twice, and replay that back with minimal improvisation.

Re: Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars

#253

Post by secabeen »

Animats wrote: post #214
CPLX wrote: post #19

I find it odd the way people talk about moving through the levels sequentially without really acknowledging there's a massive phase change that happens somewhere between level two and four, where a self-driving car could easily be way more dangerous than the average human driver. That comes as soon as you have a situation where the automation has to be able to handle all foreseeable scenarios without failing because…

The big change is between levels 2 and 3. That changes who's responsible. At level 2, the driver is responsible for accidents; at level 3, the manufacturer is. California and Michigan have already enacted that into law, that's what NHTSA recommends, Volvo's CEO publicly endorses that, and the big US automakers accept it. Tesla finally accepts it. Uber is still whining, but that's Uber. Volvo's is starting a 100 vehic…

You have hit the nail on the head here. The 2/3 liability transition is a big one. My guess is that companies will actually delay deploying level 3 systems until they are nearly perfect. This will result in systems that seem really really good at driving (especially in sunny southern california), yet still insist that the driver wiggle the wheel or show some other sign of attentiveness to prevent liability transfer.

Re: Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars

#254

Post by semi-extrinsic »

shuntress wrote: post #190
MR4D wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine some drunk guy hops into his car in bad weather. He taps the auto-cruise button and then passes out. Snow, rain, construction, - something - hinders the ride somewhere along the way home. Car cannot process the issue correctly, and slows to a stop, alerting the driver. Driver, being sound asleep, cannot hear the annoying alert tone. Alert continues, and possibly after some time, alerts authorities of it's dis…

Imagine a world where theres no self-driving cars and that same drunk guy on that some night hops in to the car and tries to drive home. Edit: I would gladly accept more failure in uncommon edge cases if it means reduced failure in normal operation (ie: drunk guy slams in to a house at 1 AM on a clear calm night)

Imagine a world where the breathalyzer tech we have had for a couple of decades now was installed into cars and simply prevented drunk people from driving.

This is coming; I've seen mentions of a system with passive alcohol detection (just from the air inside the car) plus active "blow in tube" test if the passive test triggers that will start rolling out to cars soon.

But it seems if stopping drunk drivers was really a major concern, we would have done this years ago.

Re: Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars

#255

Post by bsder »

galdosdi wrote: post #210
stale2002 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. If something goes wrong, 99.9% of the time, the solution is to slam on the brakes, and maybe swerve a little to avoid an immediate obstacle. If a self driving car only does this, it will be a way better driver than a human. Talking about weird edge cases misses the point. Edge case = slam on the brakes.

Really? So easy to think of scenarios where there _is_ no safe answer. For example, what if it's dense fast traffic (say, one car space between each car, 50mph) in random black ice conditions and sensors suddenly begin failing so the software no longer trusts is inputs? Based on recent good inputs, accelerating, swerving, or breaking are all dangerous, and based on the loss of "vision" continuing at current speed is…

> Really? So easy to think of scenarios where there _is_ no safe answer.

Then the human is no better or worse, no?

One of the improvements is that an autonomous car will avoid getting into a situation it can't dig itself out of. And, at times, it will detect those situations long before a human will.

My favorite counterexample for people like you is driving in Southern California in the rain. An autonomous car NOW is probably better than 25-30% of the drivers on the road in that situation.

Re: Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars

#256

Post by Dr0Dre »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #248
monochromatic wrote: post #241

> Disclaimer, most the content in the article comes from this video[1], I’m writing it out along with my thoughts and extra information on the topic. Feel free to signup to my newsletter below to get curate content each week. [1] http://a16z.com/2017/01/06/selfdriving-cars-frank-chen/ How is this anything more than blogspam?

Taking a 30 minute video and distilling into a ~5min read is value add.

Agree, but why didn't he link to the video at the beginning of his blogpost. I had to google the video to find it.

Re: Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars

#257

Post by khedoros1 »

aetherson wrote: post #75
JamesBarney wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Lets assume a. 1 fatality per 100 million miles driven as an average driver[0] b. .5 fatalities per 100 million miles driven as robo driver c. .25 fatalities per 100 million miles driven as 20-70 sober well rested driver I'm 31yr old male so I have an average life expectancy of 47 more years. That means I lose about .5/100 million * 47 yrs * 365days * 24hrs * 60mins * 60s = 7.4 seconds life lost per mile in robo…

This is a well-reasoned answer, but probably not the same trade-off that most people would make. For example, if a car was twice as bad as the average driver (2 fatalities per 100 million miles), then you'd say 29.6 seconds per mile -- maybe something you wouldn't do at freeway speeds, but you would do at city street speeds. But I don't think that most people would get into a car that was twice as likely to crash as…

> But I don't think that most people would get into a car that was twice as likely to crash as an average human driver

I grew up driving with my grandparents who were over 70, and my friends/random people with a car who were under 20. I think that the decision would realistically be made mostly on how the question is framed.

"Will you get in the car that's twice as likely to crash?"

"Will you get in the car with grandma to go to the zoo?"

Re: Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars

#259

Post by JamesBarney »

sebastos wrote: post #223
JamesBarney wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These years aren't comparable because I'm trading years in the immediate future for years in the distant future. Not many people would trade next year for a year and 2 months when they're 80.

Okay. Suppose that you spend 30 minutes on your commute each day for the rest of your working life, until you're 65. That means you'll waste almost a full year's worth of waking hours driving. I've invented a teleporter that will reduce your commute to 1 second every day. The only glitch is that your molecular makeup may be incompatible with my device, and there's no way to tell for sure. If it is, you'll disintegrat…

No.

Because your proposal is very different for two reasons. One risk vs reward. In the robo-car example the pay off is 20-80x of lost life to gained time. You get a lot of time for very little risk. But your example is 1.03x.

The second is the distribution of risk over the years. With the driving I take a little risk to gain a little time each day for 30 years. In your example I take all of the risk up front and then have small a pay out over the next 30 odd years.

Re: Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars

#260

Post by Gargoyle »

sib wrote: post #231
Gargoyle wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is a flawed comparison because failing to update your software or keep your tires inflated or clean off your sensors would also be human decisions that could lead to adverse outcomes with self-driving cars. It's incredibly simple to remove humans from those decisions. Just have the self-driving code refuse to engage until the issue is resolved.

And then Grandma dies of her heart attack because you can't rush her to the hospital because one tire is 3psi underinflated? Most of these issues aren't binary.

Nothing would be stopping you from driving the car. It just wouldn't drive itself.
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