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Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars

nytimes.com

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Re: Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars

#81

Post by 13Psibies »

johnny22 wrote: post #64
fleitz wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure but if a person prefers to be more severely injured in the event of an accident rather than uncomfortable all the times they are not in an accident then it's an appropriate choice for them. I don't feel it's my place or any other third party to make these choices for adults.

except when we have to pay for their surgery or whatever via their emergency room visit.

Sure, or even have to share emergency resources. I mean, why on earth would an ambulance attend a person who's seriously injured because they exercised their right to be comfortable when the ambulance could be attending someone who actually took some responsibility for his own safety and considers the well-being of the community at large.

Not that I'm this much of a bastard, but for those of us that have faith-based issues around community-provided health services.

Re: Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars

#82

Post by RyanMcGreal »

This is the crux of the matter:

> imagine that the cars would save many lives over all, but lead to some bad accidents when a car malfunctions. The evening news might show a “Terminator” car spinning out of control and killing a child. There could be demands to shut down the cars until just about every problem is solved. The lives saved by the cars would not be as visible as the lives lost, and therefore the law might thwart or delay what could be a very beneficial innovation.

It's otiose to point out that the premise of personal motor vehicles is not called into question every time a human driver spins out of control and kills someone.

Re: Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars

#83

Post by uuilly »

Regulation and fear are to be expected. The question is, what to do about them? I predict the largest PR campaign in the history of technology. Public opinion generally drives regulation. So less public fear will lead to less regulation.

While I have no way to prove it, I'd bet my right hand that Google's PR people made this story happen. I'd bet they also made the first NYT piece blowing up the Chauffeur project happen and they made it look serendipitous for authenticity. I think "The Suit is Back," and I think it's going to come back again and again.

Prediction: Driverless cars will be portrayed in a very positive way in a major motion picture within the next year.

Re: Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars

#84

Post by pnathan »

Some things aren't brought into focus here.

(1) Off-highway driving happens. That means that the algorithms have to manage an uncontrolled environment where 'anything' can happen.

(2) It is very expensive to create bug-free software.

(3) You can't iterate by failing fast on life-critical systems after it is released. Failure means killing someone.

(4) Legal liabilities. It's not going to work to say something like, "This car's driver software is not warranted free from defects".

(5) Humans can manage situations utterly outside the norm; algorithms can not see beyond the vision of the designer.

I work in an industry which operates below the levels of software assurance that the medical/flight industries work at, and it is incredibly painstaking as it is. A fully automated car will be very expensive to build.

I am not a paranoiac regarding software. I am a paranoiac regarding software bugs and the limits of the software designers.

Re: Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars

#85

Post by pash »

william42 wrote: post #57
ultrasaurus wrote: post #10

So much of technical progress happens through delivering most of the value of the previous solution at a fraction of the cost (email vs postal mail). Society seems to rule this kind of progress out for a few industries like health care, I assume something similar is happening here.

The problem with healthcare is not that progress is being ruled out but that healthcare is highly labor-driven. So far there's no machinery that can replace a doctor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect

> The problem with healthcare is not that progress is being ruled out but that healthcare is highly labor-driven. So far there's no machinery that can replace a doctor.

As a matter of policy, the FDA will not approve any device that makes a medical diagnosis without human intervention. [1]

Recently there have been numerous studies and much punditry accusing the American medical regulatory environment of stifling innovation and driving up costs. [2][3][4] The arguments are strikingly similar to Cowen's argument re autonomous cars.

[1]: http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/37596/ [2]: For a quick summary, see http://reason.com/blog/2011/05/25/will-fda-regulation-kill-t... [3]: A much discussed recent report [PDF] is at http://www.nvca.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc... [4]: An article in JAMA opined similarly [PAYWALL], http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/305/15/1523.extract

Re: Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars

#86

Post by klbarry »

Alex3917 wrote: post #71
thecabinet wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your phrasing of that statistic is misleading. What you mean is, "90% of Americans have used illegal drugs or used legal-drugs illegally." When you say "illegal drugs" people think of marijuana, heroin, cocaine, etc. Casually lumping in underage use of alcohol and tobacco is purposefully misleading.

Does it count underage drinking? I didn't even notice that if it does. Regardless, around 85% of Americans use marijuana alone, so it wouldn't change the statistics by more than one or two percent. So I don't see how that would be misleading.

85% have used at least once, not "use" marijuana.

Re: Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars

#87

Post by bugsy »

Alex3917 wrote: post #71
thecabinet wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your phrasing of that statistic is misleading. What you mean is, "90% of Americans have used illegal drugs or used legal-drugs illegally." When you say "illegal drugs" people think of marijuana, heroin, cocaine, etc. Casually lumping in underage use of alcohol and tobacco is purposefully misleading.

Does it count underage drinking? I didn't even notice that if it does. Regardless, around 85% of Americans use marijuana alone, so it wouldn't change the statistics by more than one or two percent. So I don't see how that would be misleading.

85% sounds pretty wild. Hm, looking at pg 78 of the linked document, it says among people surveyed who were exactly 50 years old when surveyed, graduating in 1977, those who tried marijuana were 82%.

1977 has got to have been the historical peak of high school usage. I notice they don't mention 51 year olds or 49 year olds, they have specifically pulled out this one exact age for this statistic.

It then goes on to say that 29-30 yr olds have a 68% "adjusted" lifetime prevalence. What does that mean adjusted? It means the actual number they measured is lower (32% for 19-30 year olds), and they tweaked it upwards because they wanted a bigger number.

About this time is where I say a study has too many methodological flaws and should be disregarded.

Re: Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars

#88

Post by teach »

Alex3917 wrote: post #71
thecabinet wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your phrasing of that statistic is misleading. What you mean is, "90% of Americans have used illegal drugs or used legal-drugs illegally." When you say "illegal drugs" people think of marijuana, heroin, cocaine, etc. Casually lumping in underage use of alcohol and tobacco is purposefully misleading.

Does it count underage drinking? I didn't even notice that if it does. Regardless, around 85% of Americans use marijuana alone, so it wouldn't change the statistics by more than one or two percent. So I don't see how that would be misleading.

You're really misreading these statistics. Nowhere do they say anything close to "85% of Americans use marijuana".

On page 103, it says that 82% of fifty-year-olds (who attended high school during the heaviest-drug-using period in America's recent history) have used marijuana at least once in their lives. But only 10% of that same group have used it in the last year.

Among current 18-year-olds, only 42% have ever tried marijuana even once. And among most age groups under the age of 30, only between 23-34% have used marijuana within the last year.

However, I don't see evidence that the study you posted counts underage drinking in among illicit drug use.

Re: Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars

#89

Post by keeperofdakeys »

izend wrote: post #23
jxcole wrote: post #9

My dad works in the airplane industry and had an interesting story to tell me that relates to this. (I'm not sure exactly how accurate it is or what the source is, sorry). Apparently, it is illegal for pilots to read while flying. Even if they are heading in a straight line with no one around for miles. This is because one time an pilot wasn't paying attention and due to a series of software failures, the plane turne…

There were nearly 6,420,000 auto accidents in the United States in 2005. The financial cost of these crashes is more than 230 Billion dollars. 2.9 million people were injured and 42,636 people killed. About 115 people die every day in vehicle crashes in the United States -- one death every 13 minutes. I will wage anyone that if all the cars on the road were computer driven there would be no where near 42,636 people k…

I can't help but think that people may not drive well with computer-controlled cars on the road. The decisions that a driver makes sometimes depends what they think the decision of other cars will be. Unless the computer-controlled cars account for this in their decisions, then there may actually be more crashes, as the other cars don't do what human drivers expect. Another interesting result is that computer controlled cars may not be able to use the most efficient behavior until most cars on the road are computer controlled.

Re: Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars

#90

Post by Alex3917 »

bugsy wrote: post #87
Alex3917 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it count underage drinking? I didn't even notice that if it does. Regardless, around 85% of Americans use marijuana alone, so it wouldn't change the statistics by more than one or two percent. So I don't see how that would be misleading.

85% sounds pretty wild. Hm, looking at pg 78 of the linked document, it says among people surveyed who were exactly 50 years old when surveyed, graduating in 1977, those who tried marijuana were 82%. 1977 has got to have been the historical peak of high school usage. I notice they don't mention 51 year olds or 49 year olds, they have specifically pulled out this one exact age for this statistic. It then goes on to sa…

"What does that mean adjusted?"

It's explained the study.

"About this time is where I say a study has too many methodological flaws and should be disregarded."

Try actually reading it. It's really not that difficult to understand. The 'maturity recanting effect' section here also gives a brief summary of what they did and why:

http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/statistics/statistics_ar...

Don't criticize studies without taking the time to understand them, otherwise you just sound like these people:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjX1IaU1A0w

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