Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck • Hacker News Board

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#31

Post by infogulch » Mon, May 07, 2018, 6:45 PM UTC

freditup wrote: post #18

I'm curious what degree of "cultural context" is built into automated cars - I feel that there has to be a lot of locale-specific techniques for driving. For example, in NYC, there's nothing at all uncommon about a pedestrian beginning to cross the street in front of you and approaching the area of your lane where you will shortly be. Pedestrians typically then stop about a foot away from your lane, let you drive pas…

This really speaks to other cues that we use while driving that are more complex that just the location and velocity of objects/people. In this case: attention and gaze.

I sometimes do the "walk up to the lane and wait" thing, but I always look up and make eye contact with the driver to communicate that I know they exist and I'm not walking out in front of them. And when I'm driving and someone is walking up to my lane, the presence of their gaze is what I use to decide whether to continue (cautiously) or slow down and be ready to stop.

I know that CV as a field has pretty advanced gaze/attention detection (e.g. see faceid), but I wonder if it's actually a part of self-driving car tech yet.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#32

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 07, 2018, 6:45 PM UTC

syncsynchalt wrote: post #21

retSava wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That, and the inattentive safety driver. It's quite infuriating really, letting lose a ton and a half of fast-moving mass without even the decency of looking where it's going. There's really no excuse.

I both can and can't blame the safety driver. To expect full attention from a person that is not supposed to have anything to do for hours on end (different from driving, which requires constant inputs and adjustments) is not something that's compatible with humans. With that said they were looking at their phone instead of zoning out eyes front.

[deleted]

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#33

Post by jameshart » Mon, May 07, 2018, 6:49 PM UTC

carlosdp wrote: post #27

leggomylibro wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as Uber's system logged which automatic brake was triggered - or simply failed to log that its own braking system stepped in - it could have saved a life without impacting the data gathered. They didn't put a tarp over the windshield; why get rid of other proven safety features?

You don't generally want multiple autonomous control systems in a single vehicle competing with each other for control. There are scenarios where the less-sophisticated collision avoidance radar could do the unsafe thing where the self-driving system has a more holistic plan. Basically, there's no reason the self-driving tech shouldn't have been way more effective than the collision avoidance radar other than Uber ro…

That argument applies equally to human drivers competing for control of a vehicle with automated braking systems. Are there not also scenarios where the less-sophisticated collision avoidance radar could do the unsafe thing where the human has a more holistic plan? If not, why not?

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#34

Post by Rjevski » Mon, May 07, 2018, 6:49 PM UTC

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #10

retSava wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That, and the inattentive safety driver. It's quite infuriating really, letting lose a ton and a half of fast-moving mass without even the decency of looking where it's going. There's really no excuse.

Unfortunately I think it's one of those things that is both inexcusable and guaranteed to happen. It absolutely makes sense to put a human in a car you're testing and don't have full confidence in yet but are sending into real traffic. Not doing so would be ludicrously negligent. However, humans simply don't maintain focus for a long period of time without some sort of extreme, years-long training. The ability of mon…

However, if the car saw the pedestrian, even as a false positive (presumably from far enough away to have enough time to brake/avoid it), I think it should’ve alerted the driver. The driver would’ve most likely started paying attention and avoided the crash.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#35

Post by jacquesm » Mon, May 07, 2018, 6:49 PM UTC

Anybody still want to defend the police's claim within a day of the accident putting the blame on the woman that got killed?

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#36

Post by ghaff » Mon, May 07, 2018, 6:50 PM UTC

smogcutter wrote: post #26

ars wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> get 5 9s reliability That's it? Humans have greater than 7 9's reliability when driving. (As measured by fatalities per time of driving, and assuming a fatality takes 5 minutes, and average speed is 30mph.) If the cause of a fatality is 10 seconds of failure, not 5 minutes, humans have greater than 9 9s of reliability. Math: 10 seconds / (1.13 / (30 miles/hour / 100 million miles)) Fatality rate is 1.13 per 100 mil…

I agree with the basic point, but does the 1.13 per 100 million miles figure include freeway driving?

Yes.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#37

Post by blattimwind » Mon, May 07, 2018, 6:51 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #15

tlb wrote: post #4

The disturbing thing about this crash is that it's such a basic thing to test on a test track. A pedestrian walking in front at night, with nothing else unusual happening, should be on the list of scenarios to get 5 9s reliability on before taking it out in public. The things you have to test in public are the complex real-world interactions, like these: https://medium.com/kylevogt/why-testing-self-driving-cars-in...

> get 5 9s reliability That's it? Humans have greater than 7 9's reliability when driving. (As measured by fatalities per time of driving, and assuming a fatality takes 5 minutes, and average speed is 30mph.) If the cause of a fatality is 10 seconds of failure, not 5 minutes, humans have greater than 9 9s of reliability. Math: 10 seconds / (1.13 / (30 miles/hour / 100 million miles)) Fatality rate is 1.13 per 100 mil…

> If the cause of a fatality is 10 seconds of failure, not 5 minutes, humans have greater than 9 9s of reliability.

If you're driving by the textbook, then you have two seconds to react to the car in front braking; the assumption being that you take one second to react normally, and get one extra second for safety.

On the other hand, in something like a play street law grants you exactly zero seconds of response time.

The question is now, of course, whether only those <<10 s intervals count as the failure, or your entire approach to driving (e.g. driving while texting).

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#38

Post by splouk » Mon, May 07, 2018, 6:51 PM UTC

joncrane wrote: post #28

GenerocUsername wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And welcome to why self-driving cars will always be 3 years away. I think we should be targeting self driving for long-haul freeway scenarios where the rules are relatively simple and predictable. Trying to control for the infinite number of scenarios in cities is a nightmare which will ultimately bog down the development of any company which makes that its goal.

> And welcome to why self-driving cars will always be 3 years away. It's also possible that human/pedestrian behavior will adapt to the consistent behavior of driverless cars.

Or jaywalking will become more strictly enforced with policing or physical barriers.

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/4/2/automated-vehic...

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#39

Post by Rotdhizon » Mon, May 07, 2018, 6:51 PM UTC

freditup wrote: post #18

I'm curious what degree of "cultural context" is built into automated cars - I feel that there has to be a lot of locale-specific techniques for driving. For example, in NYC, there's nothing at all uncommon about a pedestrian beginning to cross the street in front of you and approaching the area of your lane where you will shortly be. Pedestrians typically then stop about a foot away from your lane, let you drive pas…

Not related to the article but I want to chime in on your point. Having spent some time in VA, aggressive driving and dangerous scenarios were infrequent from my experience. Then having spent some time in FL, aggressive driving was the norm and driving laws did not exist for most people. So I wonder, do self-driving cars needs something like driving profiles for certain regions, where defensive/aggressive response behavior is ramped up or down in accordance to what is observed? In a passive region where you only have to slam your breaks or jerk the wheel in rare instances, the profile would be tuned to give gentle responses to changes in traffic conditions However, in regions where aggressive driving is rampant, the profile would have to be tuned to be alert that sudden responses to other drivers frequently breaking the law and putting people in dangerous situations is common and to respond in kind. For example, to not slam the breaks when you get cut off, or not to speed up when an impatient person is literally 1 foot away from your bumper even thought you're doing 5 over the limit already. Now that can all be bundled into one, and already is I think in current self driving cars. I'm asking specifically if it would help self driving performance and decision making if the decisions could be influenced by knowing how rough things can or can't get in that area.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#40

Post by dsfyu404ed » Mon, May 07, 2018, 6:52 PM UTC

joncrane wrote: post #28

GenerocUsername wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And welcome to why self-driving cars will always be 3 years away. I think we should be targeting self driving for long-haul freeway scenarios where the rules are relatively simple and predictable. Trying to control for the infinite number of scenarios in cities is a nightmare which will ultimately bog down the development of any company which makes that its goal.

> And welcome to why self-driving cars will always be 3 years away. It's also possible that human/pedestrian behavior will adapt to the consistent behavior of driverless cars.

Adaptations are still localized.

Pedestrians have "adapted" to just expect everyone to brake always on most college campuses.

If you treat a factory floor or intermodal facility like a collage campus nobody will be surprised when someone has to use a garden hose to wash you off of whatever multi-thousand pound metal thing you got in the way of.