Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#661

Post by MereInterest » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 3:35 PM UTC

wbl wrote: post #650

NotATroll wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Forget better frame, chassis, and body panel design to protect pedestrians! We won't need them if AI never hits anyone. Most car manufacturers have had this figured out for a long time with crumple zones and the like. > Forget better braking systems that apply themselves automatically Assisted braking technology is already implemented in some cars. Hell, Tesla implements basically exactly what you're asking for...…

Modern cars are deadly to pedestrians, especially SUVs.

Reading through the crash test procedure, it is astounding how little attention is paid to pedestrians.

1. Front crash test. Procedure: Crash car into stationary barrier at 35 mph. Is also applicable to face-to-face crash with car of same size, going at same speed.

2. Side crash test. Procedure: Slam concrete block into side of stationary car at 38.5 mph.

3. Side pole test. Procedure: Drag car sideways towards a pole.

4. Rollover resistance. Procedure: Compare the cars footprint to the height of the center of gravity.

The biggest thing to notice is that not one of these metrics involves pedestrians. Metrics 1-3 can be easily improved by making a bigger car, elevating the passengers and providing more crumple room. Metric 4 is unaffected, as the track width is increased to compensate.

If a low sedan hits a pedestrian, the pedestrian rolls over the car, having a lower impulse given over a longer period of time. If a high SUV hits a pedestrian, the pedestrian is knocked back, having a higher impulse given over a shorter period of time. Safety ratings need to account for the danger cars pose to others.

Source: https://www.nhtsa.gov/ratings

Source (SSF): https://www.safetyresearch.net/rollover-stability

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#662

Post by krisroadruck » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 3:35 PM UTC

wbl wrote: post #650

NotATroll wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Forget better frame, chassis, and body panel design to protect pedestrians! We won't need them if AI never hits anyone. Most car manufacturers have had this figured out for a long time with crumple zones and the like. > Forget better braking systems that apply themselves automatically Assisted braking technology is already implemented in some cars. Hell, Tesla implements basically exactly what you're asking for...…

Modern cars are deadly to pedestrians, especially SUVs.

I imagine any multi-ton mass moving in excess of certain speeds will be deadly to unprotected soft-bodied organisms. How do Modern cars differ from non-modern cars in this respect? We've added better brakes, back-up cameras and object detection to avoid running into people, hopefully reducing the number of incidents, but yeah you hit someone with a car moving at any appreciable speed and it's gonna do damage.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#663

Post by asah » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 3:35 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #388

fxtentacle wrote: post #187

I avoid new technology, exactly because I'm an engineer. I wonder if that is just me, but when new technology is introduced and hyped, I usually take a quick look at implementations, research, and talks just to get an idea of what the state of the art really is like. As a result, I have become the late adopter among my group of friends because the first iteration of any new technology usually just isn't worth the iss…

This whole self driving, fully autonomous thing has become some sort of strange faux-religion. It's followers see no other possible solution as acceptable. Instead of putting our heads together to make really good driver assistance technologies and being satisfied, the darn thing needs to also drive itself everywhere otherwise we're leaving something on the table! Untill we have zero deaths, we cannot stop demanding…

For selected use cases, self driving makes a ton of sense to me.

example: stop-and-go traffic - instead we could unlock millions of hours of human productivity (or provide entertainment).

example: self-parking and come-to-me, esp in closed garages. Parallel parking is hard for humans and we're poor at space utilization.

example: environments where obstructions are unlikely... airplanes have had auto-pilot for a long time... why not highway 80 in the middle of nowhere? why not trucks queuing to load/unload containers at port (or conference centers) - just drive up your incoming truck, grab your personal effects and take over the next outgoing truck while it queues for hours delivering a load and getting the next load.

There's lots of uses for self driving vehicles even before we deal with the hard cases. But they're not sexy and of course a tiny fraction of the labor savings and freedom-making.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#664

Post by rootusrootus » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 3:36 PM UTC

aguyfromnb wrote: post #540

stephenr wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then you'd have to define what a self-driving car actually means. I said "for most people". For most people I know, a car that will change lanes, navigate freeways and even exit freeways is "self driving". It may be completely unreliable but even a toaster that always burns the bread is called a toaster: no one says "you need to define what a toaster means to you". > At least for me, self-driving means level 4 upwa…

> It may be completely unreliable but even a toaster that always burns the bread is called a toaster This argument is leaning toward the ridiculous. I think only you and Elon Musk consider a "greater than zero chance of making it to your destination without intervention" to be self-driving.

Musk has good reason -- he's been selling an expensive "full self driving" package for a couple years and in order to deliver he needs to redefine the term. He's already working hard on that.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#665

Post by cat199 » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 3:37 PM UTC

fxtentacle wrote: post #187

I avoid new technology, exactly because I'm an engineer. I wonder if that is just me, but when new technology is introduced and hyped, I usually take a quick look at implementations, research, and talks just to get an idea of what the state of the art really is like. As a result, I have become the late adopter among my group of friends because the first iteration of any new technology usually just isn't worth the iss…

> That gave me the gut feeling that most people doing the research were lacking the necessary mathematical background. AI is stochastical gradient descent optimization, after all.

ML is only one part of 'AI'

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#666

Post by greedo » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 3:37 PM UTC

lb1lf wrote: post #576

kortex wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Road sensors ain't gonna fix the long tail of L5. We can't even upkeep roads as is, like crash attenuators, which would have mitigated the fatality in OP article. Also, highway lane splits are very dangerous in general. It's a concrete spear with 70mph cars whizzing right towards it. Around here, they just use barrels of material, sand I believe. Somebody crashes into one, they clean the wreck, and lug out some more…

It isn't the SOLE action for L5 to be feasible, but I believe it is a REQUIRED action. (Emphasis added not to insinuate you'd need it, but rather to show, well, my emphasis. :)) For the foreseeable future, there's simply too many variables outside autopilot manufacturers' control; I cannot see how car-borne sensors alone will be able to provide the level of confidence needed to do L5 safely. Oh, and a mix of self-dri…

I see this stated often, that humans are unpredictable drivers. What's the proof that automated systems will be predictable? They too will be dealing with a huge number of variables, and trying to interpret things like intent etc.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#667

Post by ajross » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 3:38 PM UTC

dkonofalski wrote: post #639

fxtentacle wrote: post #187

I avoid new technology, exactly because I'm an engineer. I wonder if that is just me, but when new technology is introduced and hyped, I usually take a quick look at implementations, research, and talks just to get an idea of what the state of the art really is like. As a result, I have become the late adopter among my group of friends because the first iteration of any new technology usually just isn't worth the iss…

This is why I don't understand the sad conclusion of the story in the article. The driver knew that AutoPilot had issues with that stretch of the freeway and was able to repeat the issues on several occasions but still thought it best to be on his phone, while driving 71 mph, at the mercy of AutoPilot? Especially considering that he was an engineer who had expressed concern over this, it seems silly to me that he wou…

It was a mistake, people make them all the time. Mistakes in cars kill people, and you don't need to be driving a Tesla to see that.

Frankly the whole point of automated control is to reduce this kind of mistake fatality, and... I mean, it's working. This was a tragedy for sure, but it was also fully two years ago. These events haven't been recurring, it's likely the specific proximate causes have been addressed, and by all reckoning these systems (while still not flawless!) are at or above parity with alert human drivers in terms of safety.

Basically, I read the same facts you do and take the opposite conclusion. People make bad risk/reward decisions all the time, so we need to take them out of the loop to the extent practical.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#668

Post by ghaff » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 3:38 PM UTC

contravariant wrote: post #625

syshum wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually one of the biggest obstacles to Level 5 is expectation of Zero Deaths for Level 5 autonomous operations. The standard should be fewer deaths than human-operated (or even auto assisted ) cars. When you have thousands of machines traveling in close proximity at speeds exceeding 50mph there will be deaths, this is unavoidable. We need to reduce those as much as possible but to demand ZERO before the technology…

One of the problems with merely fewer deaths than a human operated car is that technology tends to fail in 'silly' ways. Also at the very least an self-driving car should reach the level of a good driver, having self-driving cars cause as many deaths as drunk or inattentive drivers do nowadays isn't defensible. Especially since there's usually no explanation and nobody to hold accountable.

>nobody to hold accountable

Well, one of the issues is that someone more or less has to be held accountable. And that someone pretty much has to be the manufacturer. No one is going to hand over full control to a vehicle and accept the responsibility if that vehicle commits vehicular manslaughter because "software isn't perfect."

It's actually an interesting legal situation because, other than maybe drug side effects, there aren't a whole lot of consumer products which, properly used and maintained, sometimes randomly kill people and we're OK with that because sometimes stuff just happens.

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#669

Post by tiborsaas » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 3:38 PM UTC

hugh-avherald wrote: post #646

tiborsaas wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never owned a car, but going anywhere, anytime, at will is a very real thing and cars are the obvious solution. Humans are terrible at safe driving and self driving will eventually solve this. I don't see how this is not the future of transportation.

> Humans are terrible at safe driving I'd dispute this. I'd say humans are excellent at many aspects of it. The high mortality is simply because driving is inherently dangerous and we do a lot of it. I imagine the solution is basically what has happened over the last 60 years: gradual changes to improve safe driving.

"Nearly 1.25 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day.

An additional 20-50 million are injured or disabled."

https://www.asirt.org/safe-travel/road-safety-facts/

Re: Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot

#670

Post by huherto » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 3:38 PM UTC

neuronic wrote: post #441

Alupis wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole self driving, fully autonomous thing has become some sort of strange faux-religion. It's followers see no other possible solution as acceptable. Instead of putting our heads together to make really good driver assistance technologies and being satisfied, the darn thing needs to also drive itself everywhere otherwise we're leaving something on the table! Untill we have zero deaths, we cannot stop demanding…

> This whole self driving, fully autonomous thing has become some sort of strange faux-religion. What really bugs me, as someone working in consulting as a hands-on backend developer with a previous background in technical consulting at an accounting Big4 (student job), is the insane amount of PR, politics and marketing talk by people who have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what they are talking about. I witnessed politicians an…

> is the insane amount of PR, politics and marketing talk by people who have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA

I have seen this too much. People who have a deep understanding of how things work are busy learning and doing. People who can spent their energy with politics and marketing can do it because they are not busy learning and doing. I which there was a solution for this. Corporate IT departments are particularly full of this.