Live data from Hacker News

Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

bloomberg.com

381–390 of 402 posts

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#382
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you saw that video and it really did show a So whether or not the police understand self-driving systems is not relevant to the fundamental physics problem. The key question is how long was the ped visible.

"The pedestrian becoming visible" would be to the video cameras. If the vehicle has other sensors (LIDAR, RADAR, etc), how sooner/later would the pedestrian be visible to these sensors? Would it be possible to judge that by looking solely at the dashcam? Would the sensors ignore the pedestrian as a false positive in these circumstances?

I didn't mean just visible as in visible light visible - I mean detected in any way by the systems.

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#383
post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which only means they have additional value off road, not on the road . The entire premise of having a road is to avoid difficult driving conditions.

Having lived in both places, commuting in northern New England this time of year often means that you're not driving on a surface a Silicon Valleyite would consider a "road"

It's a relatively flat and level surface. An AWD car is just fine.

Yes, SV lives in it's own bubble in many ways but you don't need an SUV to commute on paved roads. I too live in New England.

Also, MA isn't northern New England.

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#384
post #373

As a side note, I find - as always - this part disturbing : >The driver, Rafael Vasquez, 44, served time in prison for armed robbery and other charges in the early 2000s, according to Arizona prison and Maricopa County Superior Court records. He served time in prison for armed robbery more than 15 years ago, what kind of relevance would have this? Presumably he has a valid driving license issued by the State, and was…

In the US, once you commit a crime, it'll follow you for the rest of your life, even after you paid your time and money.

>In the US, once you commit a crime, it'll follow you for the rest of your life, even after you paid your time and money.

I know, and understand how this (right or wrong as it might be[1]) could be of use for the police or for the judiciary system, what I am highlighting is just how gratuitious it is on a piece of news.

[1] this is a (lesser known) writing by G.K Chesterton: "The perpetuation of punishment" (page 504 of "On Lying in Bed and Other Essays") circa 1907 https://books.google.it/books?id=QtWvMclbR9YC&pg=PA504

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#385
post #373

As a side note, I find - as always - this part disturbing : >The driver, Rafael Vasquez, 44, served time in prison for armed robbery and other charges in the early 2000s, according to Arizona prison and Maricopa County Superior Court records. He served time in prison for armed robbery more than 15 years ago, what kind of relevance would have this? Presumably he has a valid driving license issued by the State, and was…

I imagine they're trying to imply that someone who was convicted of a serious crime could still be an unreliable, irresponsible, or untrustworthy person.

It's another question whether it's fair to assume that. I don't think it is, though personally I think it's reasonable to take the information into account as long as you restrain yourself from jumping to any conclusions.

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#386

Some of the commenters here think they can do a better job reconstructing the incident from newspaper cartoons than actual investigators who are working at the scene. You guys can just as well make up a story in which a murderous Uber robot chased a pedestrian off of the sidewalk and onto the road and then intentionally ran her over.

I think part of the problem is that almost all of the news articles have painted a picture of the fault being the biker. And there seems to be no one defending her and its ridiculous that the news articles are already one-sided here considering that this is a brand-spanking new type of thing that has happened on this planet.

That being said, I'm totally open to this being the fault of either Uber or the woman, but there are too many questions in my head that suggest it was the fault of the woman.

Are we saying that at this point we're going to let the initial police statement win because they are "experts" at driving. Are they also expects at the software in SDVs? I think at this point we shouldn't assume either story - but at the same time we can't let either Uber, the police, governments cover this story up for the sake of money and politics.

I think there are some pretty massive implications that should come from this - even if a human driver may have very well killed this person too (which I don't personally believe) don't we need to take a minute and ask a few questions about why the vehicle reportedly didn't even slow down after the hit? Why the dent is on the RIGHT hand side of the car (.2 seconds seems false)? Would a human that was driving slowed a lot earlier - was the pedestrian/biker expecting the car to slow because she clearly had a hand signal up - seeing a fake driver in the car?

There are too many questions and I hope that this specific story is treated with the utmost careful consideration. I for one can't seem to let it go in my head.

Someone died and it very well could have been because of our collective ego that we can accomplish this (SDVs) at this point in our history. We'll never hear from this woman again.

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really great point. I wonder if at some point self driving cars will be taught with these regional anomalies in mind. And will they be activated/changed depending on where the car is shipped/activated (Asia vs. America)?

Apart from regional differences, there are a host of other, similar matters. Cruising through your city's bar district at 3am? I'm sure you'll drive more defensively and be prepared for erratic behaviour on the part of others. However, one thing that I haven't seen discussed anywhere, but that strikes me as a hard problem: by having a non-human driver, you're literally taking out the human element of communication. E…

Eye contact is another thing that doesn't apply in some Asian countries where by default everyone has dark tinted windows making it virtually impossible to see inside other vehicles.

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#388

Call me crazy but isn't a big part of the promise of these systems supposed to be they see things humans wouldn't or couldn't? If they're just as surprised as the human behind the wheel, that feels like a problem.

If the autonomous vehicle performed just as well as the human did (meaning a human would've hit her also), then yes although it can be improved, I don't see how it is a problem.

If they are just robot versions of humans then I would argue they are far too underdeveloped to be on real roads with real people.

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#390
post #304
post #44

The NYT just published a graphic that purports to show the location of the vehicle and the victim: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/20/us/self-drivi... This is the first report I've seen that indicates the Uber AV was in the right lane. Remember that the victim was crossing from left to right, and that all of the visible damage on the AV is on the right-side bumper. It's very hard to imagine a scenario in…

I think the police are incorrect in saying that the woman walked out the median. If you look at the photo (in the NYT) with the bike and car, its shows (and is captioned as) the car damaged on the right side and the bike is on side walk. It seems most likely that the woman stepped out from behind the trees on the right side of the street. If people are actually correct about the median thing then I cant imagine how t…

well now the video was released. she was walking from the median. So yes, that seems like a colossal failure of the system.
Post reply on HN