Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 245 posts

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

#141

Post by xevb3k »

drawkbox wrote: post #132
danso wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Early reports said the police stated the AV was going 38 in a 35mph zone

It is right in a transition period between 35mph and 45mph. The Mill ave bridge is 35mph and Mill ave is slow (25mph) because it is an urban area and by ASU and Tempe Town Lake with lots of pedestrians. After the bridge it changes to 45mph so it could be the Uber was also in a 10mph speed up phase in the hundreds of feet from the bridge right where the pedestrian was.

Is that how speed limits work in the US? It’s my understanding (elsewhere) that the limit is in enforcement after you past the sign, not at some unspecified distance before it, or when you see it. The sign itself is the only transition point between limits.

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

#142

Post by joejerryronnie »

flylib wrote: post #128
chrsstrm wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When does the next batch of YC applications open up? I'd like to introduce TestTrack - Autonomous vehicle certification as a service. State (and federal) governments collaborate with us to develop a certification plan that AV makers must pass before being allowed to operate in their state. With a plan in hand, AV makers and state reps meet at one of our regional test tracks to implement the custom tests. Obstacle avo…

ironically Uber currently has a business in this exact area "Returning to the files, I soon found the puzzle piece. It was in a document Otto had submitted in support of its application to operate the state’s first Autonomous Technology Certification Facility (ATCF). This is an independent organization that will assess all autonomous vehicles that want to operate (rather than just test) in Nevada, checking that they…

Wow, talk about the fox guarding the henhouse!

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

#143

Post by ams6110 »

xevb3k wrote: post #141
drawkbox wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is right in a transition period between 35mph and 45mph. The Mill ave bridge is 35mph and Mill ave is slow (25mph) because it is an urban area and by ASU and Tempe Town Lake with lots of pedestrians. After the bridge it changes to 45mph so it could be the Uber was also in a 10mph speed up phase in the hundreds of feet from the bridge right where the pedestrian was.

Is that how speed limits work in the US? It’s my understanding (elsewhere) that the limit is in enforcement after you past the sign, not at some unspecified distance before it, or when you see it. The sign itself is the only transition point between limits.

Yes that is the way it works in the US, but as a practical matter most people start speeding up as soon as the higher speed limit sign comes into view. And of course conversely they don't start slowing down until they pass the sign posting the slower limit.

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

#144

Post by chrsstrm »

beamatronic wrote: post #123
chrsstrm wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When does the next batch of YC applications open up? I'd like to introduce TestTrack - Autonomous vehicle certification as a service. State (and federal) governments collaborate with us to develop a certification plan that AV makers must pass before being allowed to operate in their state. With a plan in hand, AV makers and state reps meet at one of our regional test tracks to implement the custom tests. Obstacle avo…

You have to work blockchain into there somehow, looks good otherwise

Just imagine if autonomous ride-hailing services were required to self-authenticate their firmware before each ride. On the blockchain. Which means you sit in a stationary car, by yourself, for 4+ minutes (probably being forced to watch ads) before it starts moving. But hey, BLOCKCHAIN!!!

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

#145

Post by khc »

radlad wrote: post #125
danso wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As of March, Uber was struggling to meet its target of 13 miles per “intervention” in Arizona To be fair, Uber is not necessarily acting badly -- especially since AZ doesn't appear to care either way -- having the safety driver is ostensibly supposed to make the AV at least as safe as if it were a regular human-driven car. I hope during the investigation we find out whether Uber made it clear to its human drivers t…

As a human driver, when do you know to take control of the vehicle and start stopping? At 100 feet? 200 feet? 300 feet (a football field?) A quick Google[1] suggests the average stopping distance of a human traveling 35mph is 95 feet (including reaction time.) The promise of autonomous is 60 feet. If the human decides to stop at 60 feet, it's too late. If they stop before that, how do they know if the vehicle is work…

You don't need a complete stop to turn a fatality to a minor injury

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

#146

Post by agildehaus »

xvf22 wrote: post #137
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…

Above all I'm interested why the car apparently did not apply the breaks when a person appeared in the visible light camera. The NTSB investigation should be interesting.

Because it likely only uses the LIDAR for obstacle avoidance. The camera is there for stoplights, other car's turn signals, etc.

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

#147

Post by imh »

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…

But regulations cost jobs! Uber could just move to another state!

>The Phoenix area was added a year ago, and quickly became the company’s main testing ground, with 400 employees and more than 150 autonomous cars driving local roads because of "favorable regulatory environment, favorable weather conditions,” according to a company document.

The sorts of regulations you're suggesting cost California the privilege of hosting Uber's self driving program.

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

#148

Post by Erlangolem »

spaceribs wrote: post #118
rgbrenner wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how else do you imagine scenarios like these are tested? Normally there aren't a lot of people willing to jump randomly out in front of cars to test their reaction.

I really don't know. Even with all the hours of recorded road time by Google/Uber used as a testbed for proper driving conditions, most machine learning systems still suffer from figuring out ways of cheating[1], and in those cases it could be fatal. [1] "The program even learns how to take advantage of bugs and glitches, like timing jumps so that Mario begins falling again at the exact time that he makes contact wit…

You know, medical research would be so much faster and easier and cheaper if we could just test new drugs and devices and procedures on humans. We don’t. We shouldn’t. Half of all humans who have ever lived, died from mosquito-borne illnes, about 5,000,000,000 human lives. People who argue that the relatively paltry number of people killed by automobiles justifies a little “sacrifice” to prevent it in the future, never seem to apply that callousness to other arenas. Certainly those people are not lining up to volunteer as test subjects.

We don’t get to make that choice for others. If you want to try give yourself Yellow Fever(1) to help prevent its spread, you go for it. If you want to infect other people for the same reason (1), go to hell. The same applies to cars. If you’re volunteering to push a bike on a dark test track for Uber, you go be you. If you want to make the state of Arizona’s citizens unconsenting guinea pigs for the same reason, go to hell.

This isn’t a new concept, it’s just a new tech, the moral dimension hasn’t changed. The fact that ethical R&D is harder than unethical R&D isn’t news, and isn’t an excuse.

(1) https://highschoolbioethics.georgetown.edu/units/cases/unit3...

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

#149

Post by inverse_pi »

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…

In science, when there's a two orders of magnitude difference, it's more indicative of distribution mismatch between the test sets. The logarithmic property of the learning curve suggests that, unless one approach is a completely random walk, two learning algorithms after a period of training must converge to their maximum capacity. As a scientist, I'm refused to be clouded by my prior judgement of the companies behind the approaches and must question the nature of the metrics and the various definitions that were used.

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

#150

Post by aeleos »

Wow, compared to Waymo's 5600 miles per intervention Uber struggling to get to 13 miles per intervention is really a bad sign for them. If it turns out their cars really weren't ready to be on the road and possibly endangering humans, this might bring a lot of problems for the company and other self driving programs.
Post reply on HN