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Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

nytimes.com

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Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#61

Post by rjvir »

fabian2k wrote: post #19

> Waymo, formerly the self-driving car project of Google, said that in tests on roads in California last year, its cars went an average of nearly 5,600 miles before the driver had to take control from the computer to steer out of trouble. As of March, Uber was struggling to meet its target of 13 miles per “intervention” in Arizona There can certainly be arguments about whether the kind of miles driven are equivalent…

It's interesting how so many techies initially had the knee-jerk reaction of "well, despite this accident, I bet these Uber autonomous cars are still safer than humans".

It seems like all information available to us suggests the polar opposite.

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#62

Post by stefan_ »

Here is the supposed technological marvel, to the point where the NYT has some infographic showing the various tech whiz bang sensors on that rampaging SUV, but then someone hands them a 140p dashcam video with half the pixels in any given frame truncated to pitch black and no one at the Times thinks to question that particular narrative?

Instead we get a weak story about "pressure building before the CEO visit" and a bunch of blame on the unknowing scrubs Uber has "test-driving" them.

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#63

Post by hunter23 »

This is how I would deal with it if I was a regulator: * Revoke Uber's license to operate - While they might not be found at fault, they have shown gross negligence by having an operator that doesn't observe the road, computer vision that can't sense a pedestrian crossing several lanes even when their LIDAR manufacturer says they could, and an algorithm which encouraged the car to speed 3 mph over the limit when it was dark conditions (that's when you are supposed to slow down due to decreased visiblity). I would then:

* Construct a test to be able to operate under day and night conditions. Periodically audit each operator to confirm they can pass this. This is essentially equivalent of a driving test but would be a controlled environment that simulates real cities. Maybe have robot humans to simulate pedestrians and obviously have other cars on the road. * Require that operators test X miles of specific scenarios (city driving, highway, etc.) each month and audit their # of disengagements in each of these scenarios. When it his a threshold, their license is revoked and they need to go back to the lab. They should also submit videos of clips for all disengagements. * Require all operators to have video on their safety operators and submit records of % of the time the operator has eyes on the road along with videos. Regulators can revoke license if they see issues with the the operator not paying attention.

We can't rely on a corporation to safely controlling their experiments, the regulators need to step up here. was uber doing anything for example, to make sure the operator was watching the road? The operator is looking down for most of the time during the crash video.

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#64

Post by sgillen »

jpao79 wrote: post #44

Isn't this where a humanoid robot (i.e. some sort of Boston Dynamics type robot) doing random, erratic stuff might be handy? Maybe put a bunch of them in a test track area like this one in Concord, California. Gomentum is Silicon Valley's secretive test track for self-driving cars: https://www.cnet.com/videos/inside-silicon-valleys-secretive...

I think there are much cheaper and more reliable ways to mimic pedestrians right now than full on walking robots...

But yeah some sort of random pedestrian/animal/debris in the road testing seems like it will be crucial to prevent this sort of accident from happening again.

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#65

Post by jameslevy »

jpao79 wrote: post #60
aresant wrote: post #48

I just don't fully understand why Uber is attempting to compete at the technology level. The most important components, like the Lidar systems, are all third party and non-exclusive. And the likely current market leader in the tech - Waymo - has made many indications that they see their largest opportunity as providing the technology through partnerships. Heck there's even been noise recently that Uber IS trying to l…

I agree - Uber's definitely not going to fare well. Maybe Travis' thinking/realization was that Uber is just an app and maybe the major auto manufacturers will realize that and not want to pay the Uber Tax and just put their cars out on the road using their own in-house hailing app? Also prior to the accidents - it was great free media coverage for the future IPO when talking with investors and recruiting smart engin…

> their own in-housing hailing app

This is very likely to be the plan.

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#66

Post by danso »

greydata wrote: post #54
ehsankia wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, then how are they bypassing the disengagement report? https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/disen...

I believe they got a permit after the last cutoff date, they'll show up in the next one most likely.

This is correct (AFAIK). Uber did operate AVs in San Francisco around 2016, but they did so while openly refusing to apply for permits [0], which would have then required them to disclose. They pulled their AVs at the end of 2016 and moved them to Arizona. Only recently, did Uber apply properly to have cars in SF, and apparently it's only been so far to give rides to Uber employees [1].

Also of note from [1]: apparently California is just weeks away from allowing AVs with no human operators. I'm guessing Uber wouldn't have been ready to try that out in any reasonable scale (if the state of the program is as bad as the internal docs say), though the cynical person in me thinks that, if the AZ fatality hadn't happened, they might have had a non-human-assisted AV in SF just to get some slice of the publicity.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/22/14062926/uber-self-drivi...

[1]

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#67

Post by danso »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #55
ksenzee wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You honestly think any alert human driver would have slammed into her as fast as that car did? I saw her in the video soon enough to have reacted, and I figure my driving skills are average. And that's assuming the lighting really was as bad as it looks from the video, which is dubious. My guess is that if I'd been driving I would have had time to slow down some, possibly saving her life. I also find it in bad taste…

Is it bad taste to point to the obvious? Really? You may be superman, your 70 year old grandma is also that fast avoiding ninjas on a highway?

It is bad form to use a strawman argument (very few people criticizing Uber have argued that the victim was blameless, at least from what I've seen on HN), though perhaps some would take extra offense when the argument involves a dead person, who among other issues hasn't been able to speak in her defense.

I can't speak for Uber and its engineering team, but I doubt they find it flattering when people defend their AV performance by comparing it to 70-year old grandmas.

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#68

Post by agumonkey »

hunter23 wrote: post #63

This is how I would deal with it if I was a regulator: * Revoke Uber's license to operate - While they might not be found at fault, they have shown gross negligence by having an operator that doesn't observe the road, computer vision that can't sense a pedestrian crossing several lanes even when their LIDAR manufacturer says they could, and an algorithm which encouraged the car to speed 3 mph over the limit when it w…

Good, a CI for road safety. I would love to see that.

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#69

Post by [deleted] »

hunter23 wrote: post #63

This is how I would deal with it if I was a regulator: * Revoke Uber's license to operate - While they might not be found at fault, they have shown gross negligence by having an operator that doesn't observe the road, computer vision that can't sense a pedestrian crossing several lanes even when their LIDAR manufacturer says they could, and an algorithm which encouraged the car to speed 3 mph over the limit when it w…

[deleted]

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#70

Post by danso »

cozzyd wrote: post #13
AdrianB1 wrote: post #6

I don't understand the fuss around this topic. In my country the law is very clear: in such a case the pedestrian has 100% of the guilt, the driver has 0% responsibility. From the movie, the pedestrian is hard to see. Yes, people point at Lidar and other systems, but human driven cars don't have anything like this: any human driver would have the accident in the same circumstances. But how about the pedestrian, didn'…

The video has poor dynamic range and is likely highly misleading. If the safety driver were paying attention it's quite likely they could have avoided it (although I imagine disengagement would negatively affect reaction time).

I wish this was brought up in all of the many news articles that have covered this story so far, if not from the police themselves. Even an argument from common sense seems clear: the visual range of the video is barely much better than what you see when driving down a rural highway. But the AZ road cuts through a public park where concerts are held, including the Marquee Theatre at the nearby intersection. The median from which the victim crossed even has a well-paved pedestrian path to get from a parking lot to ostensibly the park [0]. If the scene was as dark as the Uber dashcam portrayed, there would be many, many more victims than just the one from Uber's AV.

But speaking as a sometime camera enthusiast and photographer, I don't believe there any digital camera yet that comes close to capturing the dynamic range of the human eye.

Look at a still from the video. The exposure is such that the street lights are basically pinpoints that seem to illuminate little more than the patch of ground immediately beneath them. Anyone who has seen municipal street lights (or even the shitty ones on a country road) should be able to tell that that can't possibly be the actual amount of light at the scene [1]

[0] https://goo.gl/maps/xr5U1yHML6B2

[1] https://i.imgur.com/mP2jH6E.png

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