Apple scientists disclose self-driving car research • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple scientists disclose self-driving car research

#131

Post by sgt101 » Wed, Nov 22, 2017, 9:15 PM UTC

timthelion wrote: post #113

iainmerrick wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the argument isn't just theoretical, it's why the term "medical tourism" exists. Can you explain that in more detail? What's the connection to regulations? Does medical tourism exclusively happen from countries with heavily regulated medicine to countries with light regulations? I would have assumed it was more about the distinction between state-run same-care-for-all healthcare systems versus commercial pay-to-play…

There is regulation based medical tourism. For example, the Czech Republic is the only country in the "westernish" world which allows a special kind of IVF in which the nucleus is taken out of a near menopausal woman's egg, and placed into the mitochondrial fluid of a young woman's egg, and then fertilized using sperm from the husband, making a baby with genes from 3 people. Women from more western countries pay good…

I think the UK allows this as well.

Re: Apple scientists disclose self-driving car research

#132

Post by gowld » Wed, Nov 22, 2017, 9:16 PM UTC

devwastaken wrote: post #107

mgleason_3 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a simple explanation: You’re getting older, more conservative and more averse to change. It’s ok, it happens. As part of this you’re also likely over-estimating the danger and underestimating the benefits. I’m sure every self-driving car death will (and should be) scrutinized heavily. But remember there’s between 30,000 and 50,000 auto deaths every year. I’m betting self-driveing cars will do better.

"I’m betting" Thats the problem. How do you know? When you have family, and people you care about, thats not 'conservative'. Thats the reality of being human. If 'change' means that consumers become the testing grounds for unsafe technologies, then yeah, I'll be plenty 'adverse to change'. These technologies do not require people to die to be made.

Consumers have become the testing grounds for unsafe technologies since the invention of the Model T Ford.

Re: Apple scientists disclose self-driving car research

#133

Post by gowld » Wed, Nov 22, 2017, 9:17 PM UTC

MBCook wrote: post #50

leadingthenet wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think a lot of people would have a problem if half of all fatalities are due to system glitches even if the net result is fewer deaths and I don't think that's entirely unreasonable. Why is it not unreasonable?

Because you’re preventing 30k deaths that would have happened but causing 8k that wouldn’t... it seems fair for people to be mad about that 8k. Maybe we shouldn’t have rushed into things until that number was way smaller. ‘Diverless cars cause 30% of road fatalities’ is not a good headline.

It's all in the spin: ‘Drivered cars cause 70% of road fatalities’ is not a good headline for drivers.

Re: Apple scientists disclose self-driving car research

#134

Post by gehsty » Wed, Nov 22, 2017, 9:24 PM UTC

calvinbhai wrote: post #14

So Project Titan is not really 'dead'?

I think project Titan was trying to build an actual car. Teams designing door handles and wing mirrors etc.

I think Apple are now focussed on trying to build the technology that would make a self driving car.

I think if they were successful in making the technology they would probably build their own car.

This is more like the effort on capacitive touch screens happening before the iPhone eg let’s develop a technology and see where it takes us.

Re: Apple scientists disclose self-driving car research

#135

Post by ChanningAllen » Wed, Nov 22, 2017, 9:39 PM UTC

Self-driving cars are high up on the morally-urgent technology list: car crashes cause more than 2% of annual deaths worldwide.

So good on Apple. I hope they get good PR on this, and I hope regulators factor in the very real human cost of gumming up the works. Don't get me wrong — they ought to do their due diligence, but they ought to do it swiftly.

Re: Apple scientists disclose self-driving car research

#136

Post by zamalek » Wed, Nov 22, 2017, 9:40 PM UTC

menacingly wrote: post #13

There was a time when I thought of regulations as progress killers, but I find myself shifting on that and getting nervous every time I hear about self-driving tech. It's great stuff, but I really do not want my family to be the brave eggs we had to crack to get to the omelet of a driverless future. I now _like_ that someone somewhere has a book listing chemicals that aren't allowed to be shipped on an airplane, and…

> It's great stuff, but I really do not want my family to be the brave eggs we had to crack to get to the omelet of a driverless future.

The problem with this analogy is that it's based on the assumption that we are not currently cracking any eggs. We are. Hundreds of thousands every year. Introducing AVs right now wouldn't increase that number at worst; realistically it would likely decrease it. Your family of eggs is at a far greater risk because we are holding back. That's how atrocious humans are at driving (and making decision to get behind the wheel drunk) - we evolved to roam and climb trees at less than 10mph, so you can't blame us. Stop overestimating our ability, though.

Re: Apple scientists disclose self-driving car research

#137

Post by Caprinicus » Wed, Nov 22, 2017, 9:43 PM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #121

jessriedel wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so you feel about the 30k people who die each year the tech is delayed? Or do you really think the litigation system (where currently car manufactures almost are never liable) is properly tuned to minimize the time until that is achieved?

One way to roll out the tech is to do a hybrid system. Instead of selling self-driving tech as a convenience, the tech could be used to backup human driving. If the car sees I missed a stop sign, it could stop. The goal shouldn't be a self driving car better than humans, but a self driving car better than a human driven car with automated safeguards.

This is the case with a lot of implementations, and it’s really lot a good idea if you want people to actually use it that way. Ignoring the effect that kind of system has had on pilots, in the automotive industry it’s just going to put poor systems into use under the guise of “well you shouldn’t be counting on it anyways”

Either something works well enough to be used throughout an entire use case with less failure than a human (driving on a stretch of highway, switching lanes, getting off at an exit, etc) or it isn’t

Re: Apple scientists disclose self-driving car research

#138

Post by patrickaljord » Wed, Nov 22, 2017, 9:56 PM UTC

menacingly wrote: post #13

There was a time when I thought of regulations as progress killers, but I find myself shifting on that and getting nervous every time I hear about self-driving tech. It's great stuff, but I really do not want my family to be the brave eggs we had to crack to get to the omelet of a driverless future. I now _like_ that someone somewhere has a book listing chemicals that aren't allowed to be shipped on an airplane, and…

> I really do not want my family to be the brave eggs we had to crack to get to the omelet of a driverless future.

Good, then don't get a self-driving car, why do you need regulations for that?

> I now _like_ that someone somewhere has a book listing chemicals that aren't allowed to be shipped on an airplane

Wow, someone who actually believes in security theatre aka airport security. The litterature is so vast on the uselessness of the TSA and the water bottle ban and co that I shouldn't even bother posting it here but here you go https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/01/tsa-fails-95-perce...

> I used to view lawsuits as a menace to free enterprise, but I'm a tiny bit comforted by the fact that everyone working on car tech knows they're extremely exposed to litigation if they aren't diligent

Even in a world with no regulations there would still be private arbitrations and if a company is responsible for a death they would still get sued to hell.

> The idea of code from Apple or Google driving on my roads is switching me from classical liberalism to "help me, big government!"

Oh boy.

Re: Apple scientists disclose self-driving car research

#139

Post by eridius » Wed, Nov 22, 2017, 10:02 PM UTC

patrickaljord wrote: post #138

menacingly wrote: post #13

There was a time when I thought of regulations as progress killers, but I find myself shifting on that and getting nervous every time I hear about self-driving tech. It's great stuff, but I really do not want my family to be the brave eggs we had to crack to get to the omelet of a driverless future. I now _like_ that someone somewhere has a book listing chemicals that aren't allowed to be shipped on an airplane, and…

> I really do not want my family to be the brave eggs we had to crack to get to the omelet of a driverless future. Good, then don't get a self-driving car, why do you need regulations for that? > I now _like_ that someone somewhere has a book listing chemicals that aren't allowed to be shipped on an airplane Wow, someone who actually believes in security theatre aka airport security. The litterature is so vast on the…

> Good, then don't get a self-driving car, why do you need regulations for that?

Self-driving cars are more dangerous to the other people sharing the road than the passengers in them.

Re: Apple scientists disclose self-driving car research

#140

Post by Fricken » Wed, Nov 22, 2017, 10:10 PM UTC

eridius wrote: post #139

patrickaljord wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really do not want my family to be the brave eggs we had to crack to get to the omelet of a driverless future. Good, then don't get a self-driving car, why do you need regulations for that? > I now _like_ that someone somewhere has a book listing chemicals that aren't allowed to be shipped on an airplane Wow, someone who actually believes in security theatre aka airport security. The litterature is so vast on the…

> Good, then don't get a self-driving car, why do you need regulations for that? Self-driving cars are more dangerous to the other people sharing the road than the passengers in them.

There's no statistically useful data on that and there won't be for some time.