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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

#151

Post by sitkack »

rgbrenner wrote: post #138
baking wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoever is first to market will compete directly against Uber. There is no point in selling autonomous cars to Uber.

Not necessarily. There are a lot of reasons for a car manufacturer not to enter the transportation market: They have no history of operating in that market. It's a major undertaking to compete across the globe. The other transportation companies will now be their competitor, and will refuse to buy their cars. They may not be successful because of marketing, positioning, etc. If they refrain from that.. they can sell…

Both BMW and Mercedes run self service car rentals (ReachNow and Car2Go).

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

#152

Post by voxadam »

cozzyd wrote: post #100
AdrianB1 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Arizona driver's licenses don't expire until you turn 65.

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

#153

Post by cnfsdgradstdnt »

maym86 wrote: post #124
cnfsdgradstdnt wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The conditions under which Uber failed are similar to those in Mountain View if there was no traffic (which there rarely is). I suspect Google's car would not have had the same issues.

I agree

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

#154

Post by spaceribs »

Erlangolem wrote: post #148
spaceribs wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, nev…

I think comparing this to human drug trials is an appeal to emotion.

I also think you're saying that bad tests are better than no tests, which I don't agree with. These would be bad tests because they wouldn't constitute the complicated reality of driving, they inherently only summarize the output of such a complex system.

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

#155

Post by Erlangolem »

spaceribs wrote: post #154
Erlangolem wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, nev…

I think comparing this to human drug trials is an appeal to emotion. I also think you're saying that bad tests are better than no tests, which I don't agree with. These would be bad tests because they wouldn't constitute the complicated reality of driving, they inherently only summarize the output of such a complex system.

If you think it’s an appeal to emotion, make a real argument in that direction, don’t bluntly state the contents of your head and move on. As it stands, you just appear morally bankrupt. I’m strongly inclined to believe that’s the case, and your inability to make a cogent argument makes me wonder about what else you’re lacking.

By the way, you may be misunderstanding “appeal to emotion” as “having emotions” and that’s worrying. I can only hope your attitude is literally pathological, and not just your personality. Either way, please never work near people, or I’m a critical system effecting people.

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

#156

Post by dboreham »

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'…

In no country is it ok to deliberately drive into a human.

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

#157

Post by MarkMc »

danso wrote: post #80
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…

> 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…

I suspect this is simply asking too much of human driver. The human brain is not wired to be constantly alert without any ongoing stimulus. If someone else is doing the cognitive load, it is extremely difficult not too get bored and 'drift off'.

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

#158

Post by spaceribs »

Erlangolem wrote: post #155
spaceribs wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think comparing this to human drug trials is an appeal to emotion. I also think you're saying that bad tests are better than no tests, which I don't agree with. These would be bad tests because they wouldn't constitute the complicated reality of driving, they inherently only summarize the output of such a complex system.

If you think it’s an appeal to emotion, make a real argument in that direction, don’t bluntly state the contents of your head and move on. As it stands, you just appear morally bankrupt. I’m strongly inclined to believe that’s the case, and your inability to make a cogent argument makes me wonder about what else you’re lacking. By the way, you may be misunderstanding “appeal to emotion” as “having emotions” and that’…

It would be morally bankrupt to rely entirely on a quantitative test for something that is qualitative, I don't know how much clearer with the previous comment I can get?

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

#159

Post by rgbrenner »

sitkack wrote: post #151
rgbrenner wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. There are a lot of reasons for a car manufacturer not to enter the transportation market: They have no history of operating in that market. It's a major undertaking to compete across the globe. The other transportation companies will now be their competitor, and will refuse to buy their cars. They may not be successful because of marketing, positioning, etc. If they refrain from that.. they can sell…

Both BMW and Mercedes run self service car rentals (ReachNow and Car2Go).

and yet those companies dont dominate the rental car market.. and plenty of other manufacturers sell cars to other rental companies.

Proves my point. Having expertise in building cars, doesn't translate over into running a transportation company. They're two separate enterprises.

Uber isn't going to go out of business just because someone else produces the cars.

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

#160

Post by MarkMc »

baking wrote: post #73
habosa wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could always buy from someone else ... but uber seems to have extreme competitor paranoia when it comes to buying any services. I think they also spent $500M to make their own maps when you could use any of the popular mapping APIs out there.

Whoever is first to market will compete directly against Uber. There is no point in selling autonomous cars to Uber.

> Whoever is first to market will compete directly against Uber.

That's true, but then Uber can just run at a loss until someone else develops self-driving tech and sells it to Uber.

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