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Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

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Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#911

Post by rkagerer »

actf wrote: post #386
bpye wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SkyTrain in Vancouver, BC for example is fully automated. It works well unless there are issues with track or sensors, at which point it has to be driven manually.

The SkyTrain is a great example of how easily transportation technology infrastructure fails during even slightly unexpected circumstances. The trains were inoperable for multiple times this past week, for hours at a time due to snow storms. Trains aren't exactly new technology, yet here we are with them still not functioning properly during what was actually a pretty routine snow storm. It doesn't leave me very opti…

I agree with your point, although I don't think "slightly unexpected" is fair in this case. For non-locals, Vancouver and the region was hit with pretty heavy snowfall, ice and wind that week.

Sources

Footage of conditions in the city: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek8dN9AoGbo

Hydro woes and 150km/h winds in the region: https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/snow-day-highway-al...

Transit status snapshot: https://www.vancourier.com/news/metro-vancouver-snow-results...

School closures, Blizzard warning: https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/snow-day-highway-al...

Interviews about the ice buildup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWgx99k585s

Finally, a bit of fun; how Canadians deal with weather: https://bc.ctvnews.ca/video-shows-people-skiing-snowboarding...

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#912

Post by erikpukinskis »

wpietri wrote: post #665
erikpukinskis wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find these arguments—about how a certain thing is arguably “impossible”—to be the most tiresome arguments on HN. Everything that is possible today... used to be “impossible”. If something appears “impossible” to you... there’s no information there about whether it is possible.

> If something appears “impossible” to you... there’s no information there about whether it is possible. I agree that an argument from personal incredulity is generally not a good one. But that doesn't mean we can't demonstrate that things are very unlikely to happen. E.g., there's good reason to think that perpetual motion machines are impossible. It's also important to realize that "possible" in a colloquial sense…

Perpetual motion machines are not incredible because many people have failed to build them.

They are incredible because they violate the laws of physics.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#913

Post by erikpukinskis »

root_axis wrote: post #536
erikpukinskis wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find these arguments—about how a certain thing is arguably “impossible”—to be the most tiresome arguments on HN. Everything that is possible today... used to be “impossible”. If something appears “impossible” to you... there’s no information there about whether it is possible.

> Everything that is possible today... used to be “impossible”. That's a tautological argument. Obviously things that happened were possible by definition, but you're not accounting for all the things that were actually impossible which never happened and will never happen.

How am I not accounting for them?

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#914

Post by dang »

pjkundert wrote: post #898
dang wrote: post #825

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't let downvotes get to you like this. I know it's not always easy, but the site guidelines ask it explicitly of everyone. That's because it quickly causes comments to sink below the acceptable levels, which is what happened here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Thanks for all you do, dang! However, unless HN implements K-Means clustering, a single-axis downvote mechanism will inevitably lead to echo-chamber bullying, I believe. Especially if no-one fights back, encouraging the people who vote “sensible” vs “nonsense”, and discouraging the “like” vs “don’t like” voters who ruin debate.

In my experience, everyone is a like vs. don't-like voter.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#915

Post by DrScump »

michaelmrose wrote: post #894
DrScump wrote: post #874

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say your autodrive system replaces 100,000 driver-hours. Let's say those driver-hours would have resulted in 3 deaths of others (in vehicles or pedestrians) but your autodrive results in 1 different death (which wouldn't have occurred with the human drivers). Your stats are no comfort at all to the loved ones of your victim. It's like the Trolley Problem but the humans are unidentifiable.

The trolley problem challenges people who don't consider choosing not to act equally an active choice or intuitively feel that action is different than inaction. I would always pick the most valuable to me side and pull the switch or leave it be to bring about the better end result. Given the availability of self driving vehicles that reduce mortality choosing to drive oneself and kill more people is an unethical cho…

  I would always pick the most valuable to me side
Of course, when you know nothing about the would-be victims. But on a pure numbers theoretical basis, you autodrive veers out away from the three killers fleeing police by driving on the wrong side of the road in favor of running down two kids in a crosswalk.

Real life is complicated.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#916

Post by jpindar »

zahrc wrote: post #317
dmix wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Riding trains is great, getting to the train station(s) in a busy city, worrying about the schedule and being in the right spot for the right train, etc, is not at all fun. But otherwise agreed a ton of this stuff could be solved with modern trains. But appeasing all of the special interest groups in between has made infrastructure development impossibly expensive or takes a decade. So we keep driving cars even long…

I know it’s practically impossible and sheer utopic but I dream of an never-ending Train going in a circle, kind of like a moving tunnel.

You might enjoy this classic story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roads_Must_Roll

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#917

Post by paulryanrogers »

dodobirdlord wrote: post #846
paulryanrogers wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes sense assuming that authority doesn't leak their private keys like a sieve.

Provided they have a way to easily rotate keys via access to the physical hardware it's probably fine. If a local government loses a signing key they would have to register a new one and send a work crew to swap a micro SD card in every traffic light or whatever, but at least that's all they would have to do. In the meantime all an adversary can do with their signing key is install fake beacons, but that requires act…

> If a local government loses a signing key they would have to...

They'd have to know they were compromised first. I think that is a big 'if', and creation of a centralized repository of backdoor keys makes for tempting targets.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#918

Post by michaelmrose »

DrScump wrote: post #915
michaelmrose wrote: post #894

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trolley problem challenges people who don't consider choosing not to act equally an active choice or intuitively feel that action is different than inaction. I would always pick the most valuable to me side and pull the switch or leave it be to bring about the better end result. Given the availability of self driving vehicles that reduce mortality choosing to drive oneself and kill more people is an unethical cho…

I would always pick the most valuable to me side Of course, when you know nothing about the would-be victims. But on a pure numbers theoretical basis, you autodrive veers out away from the three killers fleeing police by driving on the wrong side of the road in favor of running down two kids in a crosswalk. Real life is complicated.

Where did I say I would decide value purely by number of people?

Why did you include the fact that they were killers fleeing police? Are, you supposing that I will somehow infer this in the 2 seconds I have to react or you just positing completele nonsense to muddy the waters with emotions?

Pedanticaly one would virtually never choose to hit pedestrians instead of cars because pedestrians don't have crumple zones or air bags.

The big question is should cars prioritize the owners health or the greater good and If the latter what is the greater good.

I don't think people will turn on a product that might decide to kill them to save a school bus so it's simplified to minimizing chance of fatalities while protecting the owner absolutely even if this risks others.

Re: Volkswagen exec admits full self-driving cars 'may never happen'

#920

Post by wpietri »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #912
wpietri wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If something appears “impossible” to you... there’s no information there about whether it is possible. I agree that an argument from personal incredulity is generally not a good one. But that doesn't mean we can't demonstrate that things are very unlikely to happen. E.g., there's good reason to think that perpetual motion machines are impossible. It's also important to realize that "possible" in a colloquial sense…

Perpetual motion machines are not incredible because many people have failed to build them. They are incredible because they violate the laws of physics.

I'm glad you now agree that one can indeed have information about whether something is possible.
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