Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street • Hacker News Board

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#161

Post by wongarsu » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 5:30 PM UTC

aetherson wrote: post #77

leggomylibro wrote: post #9

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 have seen no evidence that any autonomous vehicle currently deployed can react faster than an alert and aware human. The commentariat tends to imagine that they can, and it's certainly plausible that they may eventually be. But I've never seen anyone official claim it, and the cars certainly don't drive as though they can quickly understand and respond to situations.

"Alert and aware human" is already a high standard, given how most humans drive in routine mode, which is well understood to be much worse than "alert and aware".

From what I've seen I wouldn't trust autonomous cars to "understand" all situations. I would trust Waymo cars to understand enough to avoid hitting anything (at a level better than a human), at the risk of being rear-ended more often. Everything I've seen from Tesla and Uber has given me significantly less confidence than that.

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#162

Post by crankylinuxuser » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 5:31 PM UTC

biggc wrote: post #94

timmaah wrote: post #32

The video mentions she was on a bike and shows a mangled bicycle. Also the line markings on the street indicate there is a bike lane to the left of a right turn lane. Definitely very bad. https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4369934,-111.9429875,3a,75y,...

That bike lane is just a shoulder with bicycle symbols painted in it and it looks terrifying.

Yeah, they do the similar stupid "bike lane" crap here in Indiana as well.

Yeah, like a line is going to protect me from run amok car drivers who are too buy on their cell phones. Or it's going to stop the bus drivers from using them as pickup/dropoff areas, cutting bicyclists off.

Long story short, I bike on the sidewalks. I can be a responsible biker on sidewalks while heeding to pedestrians. My life is more important than to be biking on a vehicle road.

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#163

Post by jessriedel » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 5:31 PM UTC

jonathanyc wrote: post #114

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #70

The reason self-driving car companies have flocked to Arizona is that Arizona chose to pretty much completely deregulate them: They don't even have to report statistics to the state like they do in California. It's unfortunate, but unsurprising, the first pedestrian killed by an experimental self-driving car allowed on public roads was in Arizona.

What will the consequences of this person’s killing be? Will someone lose out on a promotion, or miss their performance bonus? We need to discuss how the developers self-driving cars will be held accountable for the crimes they commit. There is no reason the person who programs or the person who makes money from a self-driving car should be held less accountable for a crime that if committed directly by a person woul…

We already have plenty of case law and policy for cases where people are killed by mechanical equipment operated by businesses, and the type of penalties and compensation are appropriately different if the cause was negligence, malice, or impossible-to-eliminate fluke events. (Generally in the latter case, compensation is due but there are no criminal charges.) Obviously there will be policy adjustments and clarifications for the case of self-driving cars, but I don't think there's reason to think we can't apply normal and existing legal principles here.

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#164

Post by joering2 » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 5:31 PM UTC

pcthrowaway wrote: post #65

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.

Said that few times: how does any AI recognize whether object in front of me is just a white plastic bag rolling in the street, or a baby that rolled out of crib. AI cannot know and will never know. And we cannot have cars drive smoth in traffic if every self driven car will stop before hitting an empty plastic bag.

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#165

Post by wolverine12 » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 5:31 PM UTC

ocschwar wrote: post #62

_m8fo wrote: post #5

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.

" 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 think it's time to point out the obvious, and require that autonomous cars apply the brakes first, and THEN require driver intervention. And that they be a whole lot quicker to err on the side of braking. Cameras getting fuzzy ? Slow down. Your ML algor…

Car rapidly approaches you from behind.

Slow down?

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#166

Post by rimliu » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 5:31 PM UTC

kerkeslager wrote: post #112

leggomylibro wrote: post #9

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…

> 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 someone walking out into the road. Sounds like Uber's platform may not be up to that standard yet, which makes me wonder why they're on public roads. That's an invalid conclusion to draw from this accident. There were 34,439 fatal motor vehicle crashes in t…

If solution does not solve anything, what's the point of the „solution“? Most of the deaths on the road I hear in my country are the result of someone doing something really reckless and stupid. „Normal“ drivers do not kill themselves or others. So if self-driving car is only as good as a dumb driver — I do not want these cars on the road. Also, interetingly enough there is little talk about human driver assisted by technology, not replaced by it. For some reason it is binary: either humand driver or self-driving. How about some human drivers plus collsion avoidance system, infrared sensing system (way too many people die there simply becaue they walk on the road in the dark without any reflectors/lights), etc.

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#167

Post by ranie93 » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 5:31 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #146

pcthrowaway wrote: post #65

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.

The ancient Romans would have the civil engineer stand under the bridge they'd just built while a Legion marched over it. That's why Roman structures are still around today!

Do you know if this is factual? I've read that it's only a myth.

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#168

Post by Jagat » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

Can we please not overreact and send the whole self-driving research down the drain?

What does the statistics say? How many miles have the self-driving cars driven, and how many deaths were they responsible for? How does it compare to a human driver?

When a million humans drive a car for a mile, and 1 of them results in a death, it's easy to pinpoint the blame on a "random drunk/distracted driver". How'bout start thinking of the self-driving software as a combination of all human drivers, with just a much smaller odds of having a drunk/sun-blinded/distracted driver than an average human driver.

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#169

Post by DFHippie » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

bmm6o wrote: post #97

itamarst wrote: post #16

The video says bicyclist and shows a bent bicycle. So pedestrian or bicyclist?

I've heard that police reports often refer to all non-drivers as "pedestrians", even if they were riding a bike (which I learned after a neighbor was killed while riding a bike). I don't know if this is legalese or police jargon, but either way you would hope a journalist who covers these things could translate.

A police officer in Nashville shouted at my wife for riding her bike in the road in accordance with Nashville law. Basically, he didn't know the law he was enforcing.

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#170

Post by xapata » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

bmm6o wrote: post #97

itamarst wrote: post #16

The video says bicyclist and shows a bent bicycle. So pedestrian or bicyclist?

I've heard that police reports often refer to all non-drivers as "pedestrians", even if they were riding a bike (which I learned after a neighbor was killed while riding a bike). I don't know if this is legalese or police jargon, but either way you would hope a journalist who covers these things could translate.

Unfortunately, many police forces don't train the police on how to handle bicycles. For example, in many places riding on the sidewalk is illegal, yet police will suggest a cyclist get off the road and ride on the sidewalk.

From studying many bicycle-related police reports, I was dismayed at how often I read the phrase "a pedestrian riding a bicycle."