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The second ever [1] fatal car crash involving a self-driving car. This is the first one where a third party is killed. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/01/tesla-dri...
This case is in fact the first autonomous test vehicle caused fatality.
There were at least several Tesla autopilot related fatalities and injuries, but I would seriously not put those into self driving bag.
Obviously more information is needed, but I thought the entire point of having a driver behind the wheel is to manually intervene to prevent this very situation? I'm very curious to see how they'll investigate this and who will be determined to be at fault (person behind the wheel or Uber). It will likely set a precedent.
> I'm very curious to see how they'll investigate this and who will be determined to be at fault (person behind the wheel or Uber). It will likely set a precedent. It's also plausible that the pedestrian was at fault. Under some circumstances it would be impossible for a human driver to avoid collision with a pedestrian, this may be no different.
Hopefully with self driving vehicles we can start to move beyond this attitude, especially when there should be ample camera footage available to help dispel the usual claims that the person struck "came out of nowhere" or whatever.
I don’t care how good your models and data are, until you’re able to write an algorithm that can fully handle and learn from a situation it was completely unprepared for, it will always encounter edge cases like this.
This is what happens when we have a society of people saying AI is already here, people like Elon Musk saying AI is a “significant threat” despite "AI" being essentially a black box statistical model in it's current form. From what I’ve seen, the general public thinks we’re 20+ years of AI than we really are.
You need general AI before AI can drive a car, full stop. Otherwise, you need to isolate roads from other human drivers pedestrians, and cyclists. It just won’t be reasonably safe until then.
The second ever [1] fatal car crash involving a self-driving car. This is the first one where a third party is killed. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/01/tesla-dri...
The people leading the development should demonstrate that they can stop for pedestrians by personally jumping out in front of them on a closed test road. If they're not able to demonstrate this, they shouldn't be putting them on public roads.
It's a sad reality, but regardless of how many times per day a pedestrian is hit by a human-driven car, such incidents involving self-driving cars will be headline news for years to come.
I had been assuming that self driving cars would be a 'reset' for our decision to value cars more than the countless lives they end. Self driving cars could take the irrationality and emotion out of driving. It would be America's "stop the murder of children" moment (The Netherlands rallying cry to reform auto traffic in 1970's).
But now I see that it can, and probably will go the other way. These giant companies could push to further restrict the rights of cyclists/pedestrians around roadways, vilify the 'stupid' people who made a reckless decision that resulted in an accident, and push our country even further into car culture.
Context: How new technology is introduced on public streets and we have no choice or say on whether we want it or not, even if it endangers us and gets us killed.
> When motor vehicles were introduced they appeared to increase man’s freedom. They took no freedom away from the walking man, no one had to have an automobile if he didn’t want one, and anyone who did choose to buy an automobile could travel much faster and farther than a walking man. But the introduction of motorized transport soon changed society in such a way as to restrict greatly man’s freedom of locomotion. When automobiles became numerous, it became necessary to regulate their use extensively. In a car, especially in densely populated areas, one cannot just go where one likes at one’s own pace one’s movement is governed by the flow of traffic and by various traffic laws.
and
> Even the walker’s freedom is now greatly restricted. In the city he continually has to stop to wait for traffic lights that are designed mainly to serve auto traffic. In the country, motor traffic makes it dangerous and unpleasant to walk along the highway. (Note this important point that we have just illustrated with the case of motorized transport: When a new item of technology is introduced as an option that an individual can accept or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional. In many cases the new technology changes society in such a way that people eventually find themselves FORCED to use it.)
Source: The Mainfesto: INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY AND ITS FUTURE http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabo...
FTA: "The Uber vehicle was reportedly driving early Monday when a woman walking outside of the crosswalk was struck. ... Tempe Police says the vehicle was in autonomous mode at the time of the crash and a vehicle operator was also behind the wheel." That's a very bad look; the whole point of self-driving cars is that they can react to unexpected circumstances much more quickly than a human operator, such as when some…
I agree completely. One thing that is important to me is that the whole self-driving field will learn from every mistake. In other words, every self-driving car should only make the same mistake once, whereas with humans, each human has to learn only from their own mistakes.