541–550 of 1001 posts
How did LIDAR and IR not catch that? That seems like a pretty serious problem. It's clear from the video that a human driver actually would've had more trouble since the pedestrian showed up in the field of view right before the collision, yet that's in the visible spectrum. When I argue for automated driving (as a casual observer), I tell people about exactly this sort of stuff (a computer can look in 20 places at t…
How did LIDAR and IR not catch that? That seems like a pretty serious problem. It's clear from the video that a human driver actually would've had more trouble since the pedestrian showed up in the field of view right before the collision, yet that's in the visible spectrum. When I argue for automated driving (as a casual observer), I tell people about exactly this sort of stuff (a computer can look in 20 places at t…
This is a situation though where the LIDAR should have clearly been better than it was. Maybe it was in a strange state after having seen all the lights and then complete darkness, looks like they were headed north on Mill Ave over the bridge [2] just past the 202 where it is indeed very dark at night and probably the spot right here [3] which matches up with the building in the background, the other way is South and is busy/urban by ASU. They had just crossed a lit up bridge, then dark underpass, then into this area [3]. The area that it happened in [3] does have bike lanes, sidewalks and a crossing sidewalk close by [4] but is by a turn out so not a legal crossing however there are lots of trails through there.
This video is worse than expected by far and may be forever harmful to the Uber brand in terms of software.
In AZ I usually see the self-driving cars out in the day, maybe there is lots of night tuning/work to do yet.
[1] https://i.imgur.com/kwxjW36.jpg
[2] https://goo.gl/maps/ey1RA47tKBJ2
00:03 - The feet of the pedestrian are visible
00:04 - The entire body of the pedestrian is visible
00:05 - Collision occurs
If we assume that the computer only had this video as input, then the computer only had 2 seconds to avoid the collision. That would be unavoidable for the computer. But the fact that there was no sign of slowing down or braking in these 2 seconds is pretty alarming.
But it sounds unlikely that this video was the only input to the computer. Did the car have multiple cameras to "see" bright as well as dark objects at night? I would imagine that a self-driving car driving at night would use multiple cameras (tuned to various level of brightness) so that the car can match human level vision?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if this was affected by the fact that the pedestrian was in another lane up until the very last second. Perhaps the car detected the pedestrian but failed to consider it an obstacle since it wasn't in its direct path. It could be unexpectedly difficult to account for pedestrian crossing speed if it caused automated cars to stop when a car in the next lane happened to "wobble" towards the automated car's lane…
Even if you imagine it thought it was another vehicle stopped in the other lane of traffic, the SDV should have slowed. There's no way you should assume a stopped vehicle isn't hiding another danger and blowing through while speeding is what stupid humans do and what SDVs shouldn't.
I do wonder if perhaps Uber made the video darker before releasing. Or used a camera that is not the main sensing camera. Because I would hope the cars are smart enough to increase ISO to get more detail at night time.
I wouldn't be one bit surprised. The antics of this company are well known. This incident has my wondering: of all the companies working on this, why is Uber trusted to be testing this technology?
I've made a few comments in other discussions about some of the ways her status may have contributed to this tragedy. I'm just going to link to them with a short identifying blurb. Hopefully, taking them out of context won't make this go weird places.
Potential suicidal tendencies:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16633727
Potentially jaywalking dangerously and darted out of nowhere:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16625242
Possibly poor health contributed to her death:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16625076
I am leaving this here in part because "She was high or crazy" is a common stereotype about homelessness and it tends to not be a compassionate view. There are myriad ways her status could have contributed to the situation without her being either high or crazy. Yes, she could have also been one (or both) of those two things. But plenty of housed people get high or have mental health issues and we don't hand wave off their deaths as "they must have been high or crazy."
So, my hope is to be respectful of people whose feeling is her status could have contributed while putting out hopefully better information. Yes, her status may have contributed. But there is no reason to complete that line of thinking with "because homeless people are usually crazy and/or junkies."
There is a huge shortage of affordable housing in this country. A link backing that up is provided in one of my previous comments. These days, a lot of homeless people are just poor and can't afford rent, even while employed.
Anyone here have expertise on the current state of law governing autonomous vehicles? I know AZ is supposed to be lax compared to California, so I wonder if there is any situation in which Uber could be at fault (besides a civil suit from victim's family)? Let's say that the car's LIDAR was indeed dysfunctional, or obviously inferior compared to the industry standard. It could be a hardware problem, or the software a…
There’s nothing in the tort or criminal justice system that prevents responsible parties from being held responsible for negligently causing the death of a person in the realm of self-driving cars. If Arizona prosecutors don’t have enough for a case now, they might later after the NTSB investigation. No charges have been brought, so they could be brought up later. I would suspect that the backup driver would bear the…
This seems like a simple case. I would have expected the driver assist in my 2017 Subaru to have reacted to something in the road. I'm surprised that the much more sophisticated self driving system did not.
I wonder if this was affected by the fact that the pedestrian was in another lane up until the very last second. Perhaps the car detected the pedestrian but failed to consider it an obstacle since it wasn't in its direct path. It could be unexpectedly difficult to account for pedestrian crossing speed if it caused automated cars to stop when a car in the next lane happened to "wobble" towards the automated car's lane…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's clear from the video that a human driver actually would've had more trouble since the pedestrian showed up in the field of view right before the collision, yet that's in the visible spectrum. That's not at all clear to me. I don't know too much about cameras, but it looks to me like the camera is making the scene appear much darker than it actually is. In the video, you can see many street lights projecting down…
The whole reason many people on here have been advocating for self driving cars is that they can see obstructions more or less perfectly in the dark with LIDAR. I am much more interested in what that sensor said. I'm reluctant to infer exactly what a human eye would have seen in that situation. I have absolutely driven down streets in suburbia where the gap between street lights was large enough to make them quite da…
That is not the whole reason, it is one of many reasons.
> To be clear, I am not blaming the victim here, but do wear high visibility clothing when you're a pedestrian near high speed roads at night.
Yes, stupid homeless person.
