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Arizona Government Suspends Uber's Self Driving Cars from Roads

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Re: Arizona Government Suspends Uber's Self Driving Cars from Roads

#261

Post by dreamcompiler »

humanrebar wrote: post #209
lern_too_spel wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arizona did something reckless and stupid. Unfortunately, somebody other than the decision maker paid the price. Arizona stupidly allowed Uber to operate after California kicked Uber out and after seeing the videos of Uber cars running red lights in SF. For what? For a few temporary (the plan is to be fully autonomous quickly) low paying test driver jobs? The engineers making the big salaries stayed in California (or…

> Arizona did something reckless and stupid. Unfortunately, somebody other than the decision maker paid the price. Well, crossing the street in that manner wasn't the smartest thing to do either. The person shouldn't have been run over, but we accept some risks while walking bicycles across multi-lane highways at night without watching for oncoming traffic.

I thought the same thing. Why was she so nonchalant about a car about to hit her?

And then I remembered: Pedestrians are simply not afraid enough of cars. They blithely assume the driver can see them, that the driver is a human (!), that the driver wants to avoid hitting them, that the driver has quick reactions, and that the car's brakes are in good working order. Those are a lot of assumptions to bet your life on.

It's much safer to cross streets assuming every car is trying to kill you.

Re: Arizona Government Suspends Uber's Self Driving Cars from Roads

#262

Post by humanrebar »

lemonghost wrote: post #257
humanrebar wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Arizona did something reckless and stupid. Unfortunately, somebody other than the decision maker paid the price. Well, crossing the street in that manner wasn't the smartest thing to do either. The person shouldn't have been run over, but we accept some risks while walking bicycles across multi-lane highways at night without watching for oncoming traffic.

> we accept some risks while walking bicycles across multi-lane highways at night without watching for oncoming traffic. The accident occurred on a surface street in a fairly busy area right down the street from ASU's main campus where there tend to be a lot of pedestrians and bikers

Sure, but every time you cross the street, you assume some risk. That's why little kids hold an adult's hand when they cross. And the risk is even higher if you're crossing the street at night. And it's even higher if you don't have a light, crosswalk, or stop sign to protect you.

Re: Arizona Government Suspends Uber's Self Driving Cars from Roads

#263

Post by pythonaut_16 »

icc97 wrote: post #247
mtgx wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His point was that machines should be held at much higher standards than humans. This is a point I'e been making since the beginning myself. If you want self-driving cars to be accepted, they need to be at least 10x better than the best human drivers . Comments such as "self-driving cars only need to be 50% better than humans on average " are absolute nonsense. Humans will never go for that.

I don't see why they need to be 10x better. If every car could match the best that humans can do 24x7 that should prevent almost all casualties. I imagine the best possible driver to be a world-class rally driver who: 1. never drinks 2. never speeds 3. never drives whilst tired 4. drives without emotion/adrenaline (test pilots talk about the importance of having no adrenaline as the best way to perform) 5. Always kee…

That's one of the most important points that most of the statistics miss.

Autonomous vehicles don't need to beat average human statistics. They need to beat statistics based on the best human drivers.

Re: Arizona Government Suspends Uber's Self Driving Cars from Roads

#264

Post by test6554 »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #127
owenversteeg wrote: post #9

Saying nothing about Google/Waymo, it appears they're allowed to continue? Their self-driving technology seems far more advanced, I think it would be unfair to punish all the players for the bad actions of a few. In particular, Uber seems to have been operating self-driving cars recklessly and in an attempt to "move fast and break things". When those things are people's lives, that's unacceptable. I'm all for interes…

Arizona did something reckless and stupid. Unfortunately, somebody other than the decision maker paid the price. Arizona stupidly allowed Uber to operate after California kicked Uber out and after seeing the videos of Uber cars running red lights in SF. For what? For a few temporary (the plan is to be fully autonomous quickly) low paying test driver jobs? The engineers making the big salaries stayed in California (or…

The decision to allow self-driving cars in Arizona is going to save far more lives than it will take. I firmly believe it was a massively good decision. but time will tell.

Re: Arizona Government Suspends Uber's Self Driving Cars from Roads

#265

Post by azernik »

icebraining wrote: post #249
shakna wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> generally adding multiple layers of control on the same axis They wouldn't be. Subsumption architecture is the usual method to couple these things together, since the 80s. Individual reactionary modules, that may be 'dumb', like the AutoBreak, that have a hierarchy of response. Redundancy is essential for safety.

OK, let's say the Volvo system gets precedence. How will the Uber system ever learn how to behave when the Volvo system is no longer in place? If we were talking about a production system, I would agree, but I don't think this is appropriate for the training phase. Redundancy is only essential if the potential for failure is unacceptable. If you remove that (by not driving in public streets), it isn't.

It will learn how to behave by treating an activation of the redundancy systems as a failure.

One of the big lessons of the Therac fiasco - your interlocks need to log every time they are activated.

Re: Arizona Government Suspends Uber's Self Driving Cars from Roads

#266

Post by whateversclever »

ceejayoz wrote: post #245
dmix wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even regardless of her lack of full attention, from the video it seems quite obvious a human driver would have failed to see the woman in time even with full alertness. The only question here, and why Uber is under scrutiny, is why a Lidar system which can "see in the dark" wasn't able to detect her and react in time.

> from the video it seems quite obvious a human driver would have failed to see the woman in time even with full alertness The video is massively - and I'll wager intentionally - misleading. There's no chance the car was making decisions from a $20 dashcam. Here's what a better camera (looks like a smartphone camera) sees in the same spot (at about 33 seconds - you can see the signs, lights, and terrain match the Ube…

It looks to me that the relevant part of that video is at 2:06, where he mentions a news camera filming. That section is much darker than the earlier footage, but the camera is waving around making it difficult to get a clear idea.

Re: Arizona Government Suspends Uber's Self Driving Cars from Roads

#267

Post by throwaway2048 »

coryfklein wrote: post #256
philip1209 wrote: post #252

This seems like a lesson in why government regulation can be good.

The government regulation allowed the Uber on the road, so it may be a lesson in why government regulation doesn't work or provides a false sense of safety.

clearly the better alternative would have been no regulation, and uber continuing to operate (???)

Re: Arizona Government Suspends Uber's Self Driving Cars from Roads

#268

Post by ceejayoz »

whateversclever wrote: post #266
ceejayoz wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> from the video it seems quite obvious a human driver would have failed to see the woman in time even with full alertness The video is massively - and I'll wager intentionally - misleading. There's no chance the car was making decisions from a $20 dashcam. Here's what a better camera (looks like a smartphone camera) sees in the same spot (at about 33 seconds - you can see the signs, lights, and terrain match the Ube…

It looks to me that the relevant part of that video is at 2:06, where he mentions a news camera filming. That section is much darker than the earlier footage, but the camera is waving around making it difficult to get a clear idea.

Here, I screencapped the same scene in the two videos:

https://imgur.com/a/LiISl (note the signs on either side of the road, the street lights, the hill on the right-hand side, the building with lit sign in the background, the purple light on the left-hand side, etc.)

33 seconds in in the YouTube video, and 6 seconds in on the Uber video at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/22/video-rel....

Re: Arizona Government Suspends Uber's Self Driving Cars from Roads

#269

Post by azernik »

sokoloff wrote: post #236
Steeeve wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In California, that's a legal crosswalk and the pedestrian gets right of way. In Arizona, it is not. I'm not sure a pedestrian even gets the right of way in a marked cross walk at all times in Arizona. Different state, different culture, different laws. We had local PD actually pull a very similar sting operation that had people complaining recently. They had a police officer with a baby stroller cross at an unmarked…

Genuine question: what are the conditions to make a particular piece of pavement a legal crosswalk in California?

Basically - any (right-angled) corner of sidewalk produces a crosswalk going in the directions parallel to both its sides.

Source: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...

"""

“Crosswalk” is either:

(a) That portion of a roadway included within the prolongation or connection of the boundary lines of sidewalks at intersections where the intersecting roadways meet at approximately right angles, except the prolongation of such lines from an alley across a street.

(b) Any portion of a roadway distinctly indicated for pedestrian crossing by lines or other markings on the surface.

Notwithstanding the foregoing provisions of this section, there shall not be a crosswalk where local authorities have placed signs indicating no crossing.

"""

Re: Arizona Government Suspends Uber's Self Driving Cars from Roads

#270

Post by tim333 »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #198
owenversteeg wrote: post #9

Saying nothing about Google/Waymo, it appears they're allowed to continue? Their self-driving technology seems far more advanced, I think it would be unfair to punish all the players for the bad actions of a few. In particular, Uber seems to have been operating self-driving cars recklessly and in an attempt to "move fast and break things". When those things are people's lives, that's unacceptable. I'm all for interes…

>> Their self-driving technology seems far more advanced, I think it would be unfair to punish all the players for the bad actions of a few. It's very unlikely that Uber and Waymo have radically different technology. The two companies probably differe only in business and testing practices- i.e. the environments and the conditions in which they are willing to test their cars. Waymo simply seems to be more conscious a…

>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”

Quite a difference.

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