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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

#161

Post by Erlangolem »

spaceribs wrote: post #158
Erlangolem wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You’re being obtuse. It’s morally bankrupt to experiment on humans without their informed consent. At least, I hope you’re being obtuse, and not just utterly broken.

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

#162

Post by kalleboo »

saas_co_de wrote: post #131
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…

How about blame the driver behind the wheel who was hired to drive the car and was 100% responsible for everything that happened? Funny how the pile on is targeted at Uber and the tech, when this is a test vehicle with a human driver who was hired to be responsible to monitor, respond, and override the computer at all times. The human failed. Blame the computer. Makes sense.

Why not blame both? The human should have been paying attention.

But it's obvious that riding long stretches in an automatic car is going to lead to people getting bored and distracting themselves and not paying attention. It's a HUGE topic in every discussion on self-driving cars. It's why Teslas require you to grab the wheel every 15 seconds.

Uber should have short shifts, bans on personal cell phones, attention and tiredness tracking (which IIRC Volvos already have!) etc, etc to combat this. But they don't actually care, it's just a regulatory checkmark, so they stick some minimum wage warm body in there on a full-time shift and this is what happens when it gets late.

Other safety-conscious know that humans will cut corners and hence have tricks like safety interlocks, double-checks, multiple people involved etc to combat that. In aerospace you can't just say "well the maintenance guy shouldn't have done that, 300 people died and it was all his fault" - you have redundant systems, verifications, checks, etc.

edit: from the article, Uber used to have two safety drivers in each car, but cut it down to one for whatever reason

> When Uber moved to a single operator, some employees expressed safety concerns to managers, according to the two people familiar with Uber’s operations. They were worried that going solo would make it harder to remain alert during hours of monotonous driving.

They knew this was going to be unsafe but did it anyway

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

#163

Post by foobar1962 »

chrsstrm wrote: post #103
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…

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…

>... we certify the vehicle and its software

Certify what, that the car passed the test track? That’s not the hard part.

The hard part is taking responsibility for the performance of the vehicle including the liability for accidents and malfunctions.

When the autonomous vehicles become a comercial reality they will be need to be treated like aircraft: regular maintenance by certified engineers and NO unapproved modifications. Gone will be the ability to pimp your ride, gone will be back yard mechanics and certainly no “jail broken” cars running modified software on the road.

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

#164

Post by megablast »

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…

It is not ML deciding where to turn, when to slow down.

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

#165

Post by MarkMc »

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…

> And then you have major auto manufacturers are also pouring BILLIONS into the space

That is now. But at the time Uber made its decision to develop self-driving cars, the auto manufacturers had just gone through a bruising financial crisis and were skeptical about this new self-driving technology. Uber recognized it as an existential threat before anyone else and did not want to rely on an industry with a poor reputation for management and technology investment.

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

#166

Post by ClassyJacket »

habosa wrote: post #43
cozzyd wrote: post #5

I thought the conventional wisdom was that the only way Uber can become profitable was through autonomous vehicles. It sounds like they're very unlikely to succeed at that... Arizona should consider improving their regulations to try to avoid additional fatalities.

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.

Yes, they COULD licence the tech from someone else, but the price would be too high to make it worth doing.

My feeling is that if someone else has self driving technology, Uber has no way of adding value. Tesla, Waymo, whoever - will simply run a taxi service themselves and reap more profits.

It's possible that a smaller self driving company might not have the capital to start an actual fleet, but I feel like investors would go for it as it'd be a pretty sure bet, provided the technology is solid.

I think Uber outright acquiring another company that has the technology is more likely - again, that company would probably also just start their own taxi service, but it might work if they have different goals - the owners may simply be looking for a short term payout.

Uber knows that. All they have is a userbase with an app installed, which isn't of as much value as it is for say, a social media app, because there's no network effect. You don't have to use the same taxi service as your friends do. People will be more than happy to switch to a different service if the price is competitive and it doesn't have a bad reputation.

It's not impossible they'd licence self driving tech, but I doubt the economics of it.

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

#167

Post by gfdr »

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 is essentially equivalent of a driving test but would be a controlled environment that simulates real cities.

So, which is it? A controlled environment, or a real city? I think it is a bit naive to expect /every/ edge-case to be worked out prior to even a testing permit being given out. If you could pass a test that faithfully simulates ALL the intricacies of driving in a real city, you're well past testing phase anyway.

Further, this ignores that we may be able to incentivize this behavior (learn all the lessons you can in controlled environments before putting people at danger) in other ways, e.g. financial penalties.

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

#168

Post by ClassyJacket »

rgbrenner wrote: post #159
sitkack wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"and yet those companies dont dominate the rental car market.." this is a fair point, however I feel there's more to rentals that stands in the way of that, such as real estate. There's only room for so many car rental places in a convenient location at an airport, for example.

I'm not saying setting up and running a company like Uber is an easy task, and I acknowledge that not every company vertically integrates everything they possibly could, but I don't feel like the hurdles to running a taxi app are as significant for a car company as they would be for entering other related markets.

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

#169

Post by jumpmanjr »

sgillen wrote: post #64
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.

The self driving car executive’s children. These guys are willing to risk my family to make a lot of money. We should make it mandatory that their kids play an extravagant game of frogger, instructed (when/where to cross) by college kids who get paid $$$ if one of the kids gets hit. Televise it. Let’s see how confident they really are in their technology.

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

#170

Post by drawkbox »

lsaferite wrote: post #140
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.

The accident was ~590ft after the speed increase.

So about 6-8 seconds or so, as the car was still accelerating most likely. There is also probably a slight delay for AI based driving after speed limits change, so probably closer to 4-5 seconds later.
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