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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

#91

Post by castle-bravo »

bnj wrote: post #77
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…

Out of curiosity, is anyone aware whether it might serve some use to do tests like this virtually? Drive a car around to gather a mass of raw sensor readings on a busy street, and then feed those readings to test cars as inputs? I guess that description doesn't make much sense, but it would be interesting to develop a virtual testing environment for testing the algorithm package even though that doesn't address hardw…

I think that's what NVIDIA tried to do with their BB8 test car [0]. I don't know what came of that.

[0] https://youtu.be/LVBBKppAaV4

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

#92

Post by azernik »

throw7 wrote: post #86

My takeaway opinion: Sad to see that Khosrowshahi did not end the self driving program at Uber. Yes, I know hindsight is 20/20, but that's exactly why an incoming CEO is brought in. Everyone was saying autonomous vehicles was Uber's only possible future... he saw the internal reports, he knew his (or should have) talent (was it "techbros" or computer scientists?). I feel this is the real inflection point for Uber.

I think Uber's essential mistake is to go from "autonomous vehicles are the only way our business model makes sense" to "we should be building autonomous vehicles".

Their expertise is in UI, routing algorithms, and business development. There is nothing in their background that indicates they should have any competitive advantage in building autonomous vehicles over Google/Waymo, the proverbial 800-pound gorilla of everything AI, or GM/Cruise, with experience in safety-critical engineering and oodles of capital to throw at the problem.

Sure, base your business model on the eventual development of driverless cars, but buy the damned things from the professionals, eh?

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

#94

Post by Erlangolem »

spaceribs wrote: post #85
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…

This sounds expensive, unnecessary and would result in creating systems that were built to defeat a test, not reality. Most current human drivers wouldn't be able to pass a test with the conditions that resulted in the fatal crash.

I thought the point of SDV’s was that they would be radically better than human drivers? You can’t have it both ways.

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

#95

Post by notahacker »

spaceribs wrote: post #85
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…

This sounds expensive, unnecessary and would result in creating systems that were built to defeat a test, not reality. Most current human drivers wouldn't be able to pass a test with the conditions that resulted in the fatal crash.

I also think most current human drivers would also expect to spend significant time in jail for causing death by driving so careless they didn't even try to brake when confronted by an pedestrian in the roadway (even if she shouldn't have been there and an accident may not have been entirely avoidable)

I'm fine with Uber's executives and programmers accepting the same level of culpability as an alternative to meeting higher standards than humans to get on the road. Ditto for their culpability for potential bugs which would be considered [attempted] vehicular homicide in the absence of a more logical explanation for the vehicle's actions if driven by humans. Abdicate that responsibility and you'd better be prepared for more stringent tests.

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

#96

Post by simmanian »

spaceribs wrote: post #85
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…

This sounds expensive, unnecessary and would result in creating systems that were built to defeat a test, not reality. Most current human drivers wouldn't be able to pass a test with the conditions that resulted in the fatal crash.

This is simply not true. The dashcam footage released by Tempe police does not depict the driving conditions at the site of the accident accurately at all. Check out [1] for the actual driving conditions at night.

I'm not usually the one to talk about conspiracy, but Tempe police had no legal responsibility to release the footage since the investigation is still ongoing. Couple this with the statement released by the Tempe chief of police defending Uber, I'm inclined to believe Uber and some state government officials are working together to sway the public opinion and minimize damage. At the end of the day, the victim is painted as an idiot who practically committed suicide. This is gross injustice.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XOVxSCG8u0

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

#97

Post by cnfsdgradstdnt »

googlemike wrote: post #7
danso wrote: post #4

> As of March, Uber was struggling to meet its target of 13 miles per “intervention” in Arizona For reference’s sake, here are the disengagement ratios for the companies who operate in California, which requires such disclosures: https://www.google.com/amp/s/thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/... Waymo averaged more than 5,000 miles per disengagement, fwiw. Though as the link mentions, the definition of “disengagement” c…

Something to note - a mile is a mile here. I can buy an off the shelf tesla and have it do laps on my neighborhood street until the cows come home, this is not the same kind of mile as downtown SF in peak traffic.

I don't think majority of those miles are in SF. I expect most would be in CA suburban towns like mountain view where for the past few years I'd see a waymo car basically Everytime I drove for more than 10 minutes

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

#98

Post by cnfsdgradstdnt »

azernik wrote: post #92
throw7 wrote: post #86

My takeaway opinion: Sad to see that Khosrowshahi did not end the self driving program at Uber. Yes, I know hindsight is 20/20, but that's exactly why an incoming CEO is brought in. Everyone was saying autonomous vehicles was Uber's only possible future... he saw the internal reports, he knew his (or should have) talent (was it "techbros" or computer scientists?). I feel this is the real inflection point for Uber.

I think Uber's essential mistake is to go from "autonomous vehicles are the only way our business model makes sense" to "we should be building autonomous vehicles". Their expertise is in UI, routing algorithms, and business development. There is nothing in their background that indicates they should have any competitive advantage in building autonomous vehicles over Google/Waymo, the proverbial 800-pound gorilla of e…

I think uber has been on a hiring push the last few years for quality engineers so it's not inconceivable they could make this work. I also think them working on this mostly makes business sense. To me it sounds like they rushed the development and tried going too far way too fast.

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

#100

Post by cozzyd »

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?

You bring up a great (but separate) point. It is far too easy to renew your driving privileges even when your abilities are no longer sufficient to be a safe driver.
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