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Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars

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Re: Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars

#301

Post by wavefunction »

uytyuiyu76678 wrote: post #293
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 reall…

That will just spurn a small industry with hobos camping near bars, ready to blow for ten bucks (no pun intended).

Hobos aren't generally someone you'd want to rely on for their sobriety.

Re: Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars

#302

Post by jpindar »

sytse wrote: post #251
nradov wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

There's plenty of places that have no cell phone reception. I go through one on my commute, and it's not even all that rural.

Re: Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars

#303

Post by uytyuiyu76678 »

wavefunction wrote: post #301
uytyuiyu76678 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That will just spurn a small industry with hobos camping near bars, ready to blow for ten bucks (no pun intended).

Hobos aren't generally someone you'd want to rely on for their sobriety.

They wait for a couple of ten buck payoffs before retiring for the day. Or the union has a designated blower for the day.

Re: Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars

#304

Post by derekp7 »

jpindar wrote: post #299
_archon_ wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, he can still be arrested for DWI. This would be an interesting case, though, because the mens rea is clearly not present; the human intended to be conveyed by a capable transportation system, and didn't intend or attempt to control a vehicle while in motion. I look forward to the result of this case for legal precedent reasons.

You can get arrested for sleeping in a car while drunk, even if you clearly intended to sleep it off overnight instead of driving home drunk. No mens rea needed.

In some states, it makes a difference if your keys are in ignition or not. Which makes me wonder how they treat push-button start cars?

Otherwise, what happens if someone (sober) is giving a ride to a passed out friend, can't wake that friend up, and ends up leaving the car (with the drunk friend still in it)? In that case, everyone involved was being responsible (no drunk driving was involved at all, actual or potential).

Re: Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars

#305

Post by chias »

The source for the poor quality and unattributed animation under "Can We Get Rid Of Traffic Lights" is the Automated Intersection Management project from the University of Texas at Austin (I worked on it briefly).

More info (including the simulator software) here: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~aim/

Interesting simulation case videos here: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~aim/?p=video

The simulator lets you test out some pretty interesting ideas, including various intersection management policies and protocols. My work was extending the simulator to support dynamic microtolling, in an effort to determine whether it would be a way to mitigate Braess' Paradox (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess'_paradox)

Re: Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars

#306

Post by MR4D »

derekp7 wrote: post #304
jpindar wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get arrested for sleeping in a car while drunk, even if you clearly intended to sleep it off overnight instead of driving home drunk. No mens rea needed.

In some states, it makes a difference if your keys are in ignition or not. Which makes me wonder how they treat push-button start cars? Otherwise, what happens if someone (sober) is giving a ride to a passed out friend, can't wake that friend up, and ends up leaving the car (with the drunk friend still in it)? In that case, everyone involved was being responsible (no drunk driving was involved at all, actual or poten…

Simple answer from a lawyer friend of mine: don't sleep in the driver's seat.

Re: Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars

#307

Post by wtbob »

3chelon wrote: post #129
greedo wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autonomous vehicles can't rely upon V2V comms. There are far too many ways for such comms to degrade.

This kind of problem has long been solved in the mobile comms world by strong ECC codes and robust modems and channel coding algorithms. We routinely send autonomous vehicles into interplanetary space so I can't see that linking vehicles on a road is going to be a major blocker. Especially if they're on a redundant mesh network, or a smart highway.

Yeah, I think we can ensure that V2V receivers receive what transmitters transmit. What worries me is that the transmitters will lie. How difficult would it be for someone with a high-power transmitter — or many high-power transmitters — to drown out legitimate signals and present a false picture to receivers?

Could an anti-social person cause a bunch of cars to crash for kicks? Could someone with an axe to grind cause a bunch of cars to crash in order to further his goals?

Re: Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars

#308

Post by wtbob »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #200
FrancoDiaz wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know my point, you just don't like it. It's far from a stretch of the imagination to see a future where the government essentially has a kill-switch for most roads.

It already has - as long as police and military still follows orders, they can blockade any road or set of roads at will, very quickly.

Of course, a vehicle can still go around those road blocks, currently — a car _can_ drive across grass or dirt, just not terribly well. That's very different from an area-denial killswitch.

Re: Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars

#309

Post by wtbob »

maverick_iceman wrote: post #147
olalonde wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Smoking, drinking and extreme sports" are not great comparisons because they only put yourself at risk (for the most part). Driving, on the other hand, can endanger other people's life on the road.

Second hand smoking puts others in risk too.

> Second hand smoking puts others in risk too.

No, no it does not. So-called 'second-hand smoke' (a genius marketing term for smoke) is no more harmful than any other smoke. It is, however, a wonderful excuse for the sort of people who like controlling other people to … control other people.

Re: Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars

#310

Post by caf »

ghaff wrote: post #283
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're talking the potentially many decades off roboUber, I don't necessarily disagree. I mean that's the whole selling point...and it would basically take that level 5 ability (as demonstrated in many articles and studies) to give you the "I can kick back and watch TV on my highway commute" ability. Hell you can install an in-dash DVD player now, but that's not the vision of self driving cars.

It may be the main selling point for the urban "no one will own cars" crowd but, yes, they're way optimistic on timeframes anyway. Contra something I read recently, yes, kids being born this year will need to learn to drive. As I said, there's a huge market for incremental convenience and safety in a relatively short timeframe. But, yes, I'm more inclined to put my money on Volvo and Ford in that game than Google. AD…

Particularly since you'd presume that the "attention" alert would also stop the entertainment system.
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