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

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

#421

Post by orbitur » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 6:40 PM UTC

IgorPartola wrote: post #390

This is what's going to happen. If you've ever seen a machine learning algorithm in action, this isn't surprising at all. Basically, they'll behave as expected some well known percentage of the time. But when they don't, the result will not be just a slight deviation from the normal algorithm, but a very unexpected one. So we will have overall a much smaller number of deaths caused by self driving cars, but ones that…

> I won't be surprised if someone at some point wears a stripy outfit, and the car thinks they are a part of the road, and tries to explicitly chase them down until they are under the wheels. Or if the car suddenly decides that the road continues at a 90 degree angle off a bridge. Or that the splashes from a puddle in front is actually an oncoming car and it must swerve into the school kids crossing the perpendicular road.

Are you working on the next season of Black Mirror?

In all seriousness, my fear (and maybe not fear, maybe it's happy expectation in light of the nightmare scenarios) is that if a couple of the "weird and terrifying" accidents happen, the gov't would shut down self-driving car usage immediately.

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

#422

Post by radley » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 6:40 PM UTC

abalone wrote: post #292

This may not have been an unexpected circumstance. The "pedestrian outside of the crosswalk" report is likely wrong. There is visual evidence that strongly supports that this was a case of the Uber hitting a bicyclist while merging into the right turn lane. Here's a picture of the crumpled bicycle (note dent on the front right of the car): https://twitter.com/daiwaka/status/975767445859287042 The sign it is lying nex…

He posted a tweet later, it wasn't a cyclist:

https://twitter.com/daiwaka/status/975771533745336320

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

#423

Post by tomswartz07 » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 6:40 PM UTC

GeorgeTirebiter wrote: post #386

tomswartz07 wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people leading the development of these horse-drawn carriages should demonstrate that they can stop for pedestrians by jumping in front of them on a closed test dirt-path. If they're not able to demonstrate this, they shouldn't be putting them on public carriageways Sounds silly when compared against old tech. Accidents happen, best we can do is try to prevent them.

Imagine if we fully separated car traffic from foot traffic. Would this have happened then?

I mean, you still have issues like wildlife on the roadway.

It's impossible to fully remove the issue. Vehicles still need to react to and reduce accidents, but they will absolutely never eliminate them.

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

#424

Post by akerro » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 6:40 PM UTC

apeace wrote: post #366

I'm really shocked at the trend in comments here. Yes, we get it. Fatalities will happen sometimes, they are unavoidable sometimes, and what matters in the long run is if we can achieve a significant overall reduction in fatalities. But my god, a person was just killed by a computer. Can't we have some compassion and humility? Let's, as a community, set the standard for how we will react to these events. Let's make s…

>Fatalities will happen sometimes

How many self-driving cars are there on the roads right now? And what's fatality rate? I' quite sure it's higher now than compared to human-only driver.

> they are unavoidable sometimes

Were autonomous cars not designed to prevent such situations?

>Let's, as a community, set the standard for how we will react to these events

Yes and let's punish non-conformists!

> which gets posted on HN whenever a self-driving article comes out.

I honestly have no idea what that comment is.

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

#425

Post by arcticfox » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

alyx wrote: post #393

apeace wrote: post #366

I'm really shocked at the trend in comments here. Yes, we get it. Fatalities will happen sometimes, they are unavoidable sometimes, and what matters in the long run is if we can achieve a significant overall reduction in fatalities. But my god, a person was just killed by a computer. Can't we have some compassion and humility? Let's, as a community, set the standard for how we will react to these events. Let's make s…

I find what might help those that quote statistics is to self-reflect and ask the question, how would you react if your father/mother/sister/son/daughter/etc was the victim? Would you care that statistically self-driving cars have killed less people than human drivers?

I think that's a strange thought experiment, since it's basically requesting that you think emotionally and as irrationally as possible to draw conclusions.

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

#426

Post by simplyluke » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

mtgx wrote: post #293

olympus wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could a human have reacted fast enough to stop for someone jumping out in front of them? If the person jumped out so fast that nobody could have possibly reacted in time, then it's not a stain on the technology- even with an instantaneous application of brakes, a car still takes a while to come to a stop. If the human jumped out ten seconds earlier and was waving her hands for help, then it's an issue. "the whole poi…

I've been saying this from the beginning: it's not enough for self-driving cars to be "better than the average driver". They need to be at least 10x better than the best drivers. I find it crazy that so many people think it is. First off, by definition like 49% of the drivers are technically better than the "average driver". Second, just like with "human-like translation" from machines, errors made by machines tend t…

If 1% fewer people died with self driving cars that would be 400 fewer deaths a year. That's absolutely a good change.

I agree that the _goal_ should be 10x or even 100x better than the best human drivers, but better than average would result in net good and it's hard for me to see an argument in which that's not true because it's less net suffering/death.

>If you want self-driving cars to be successful then you should be demanding from the carmakers to make these systems flawless.

We're still talking about tons of metal moving at very high speeds around other vehicles. That's just not possible. Should my self driving car handle a catastrophic tire failure at 90mph better than me? Absolutely. Is that still a situation that's likely to result in a crash regardless of the best inputs on a compromised system? Yes. There will _always_ be situations in which fatalities can occur with cars or any other kind of vehicle no matter how well they're engineered.

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

#427

Post by wyager » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

alyx wrote: post #393

apeace wrote: post #366

I'm really shocked at the trend in comments here. Yes, we get it. Fatalities will happen sometimes, they are unavoidable sometimes, and what matters in the long run is if we can achieve a significant overall reduction in fatalities. But my god, a person was just killed by a computer. Can't we have some compassion and humility? Let's, as a community, set the standard for how we will react to these events. Let's make s…

I find what might help those that quote statistics is to self-reflect and ask the question, how would you react if your father/mother/sister/son/daughter/etc was the victim? Would you care that statistically self-driving cars have killed less people than human drivers?

> how would you react if your father/mother/sister/son/daughter/etc was the victim?

How you would react when emotionally distraught shouldn’t be the model for how you act all the time.

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

#428

Post by Thaxll » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

akerro wrote: post #424

apeace wrote: post #366

I'm really shocked at the trend in comments here. Yes, we get it. Fatalities will happen sometimes, they are unavoidable sometimes, and what matters in the long run is if we can achieve a significant overall reduction in fatalities. But my god, a person was just killed by a computer. Can't we have some compassion and humility? Let's, as a community, set the standard for how we will react to these events. Let's make s…

>Fatalities will happen sometimes How many self-driving cars are there on the roads right now? And what's fatality rate? I' quite sure it's higher now than compared to human-only driver. > they are unavoidable sometimes Were autonomous cars not designed to prevent such situations? >Let's, as a community, set the standard for how we will react to these events Yes and let's punish non-conformists! > which gets posted o…

Probably not since Google drove millions of KM without a single fatality.

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

#429

Post by wruwew8uu9 » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 6:42 PM UTC

Why is Uber allowed to test its software for free on public roads ? Why doesn't it use a purpose-built test-track of its own, where it must prove that its software won't kill people (using robotic crash-test dummies to avoid) before it is allowed to use public roads ?

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

#430

Post by ggggtez » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 6:42 PM UTC

remind_me_again wrote: post #116

What I don't get is that if this is a test car, how come the the driver did not take over the helm immediately. The driver in that car should be in full alert as if driving the vehicle himself and jump in as needed. Test should not mean to let loose an autonomous car.

Unlike all the other comments discussing charges, this one actually has a good point. Presumably the safety driver is there specifically to prevent this from happening. They'd still have to show that the driver was personally at fault. That would mean showing that the driver was e.g. sleeping/not paying enough attention, or something similar.

At the very least, it might call into question whether safety drivers are actually providing any real safety. Localities may start to crack down on using that kind of excuse for self-driving tests.