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U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#361

Post by robbrown451 »

datavirtue wrote: post #351
robbrown451 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that they don't work hard to avoid having their cars hit pedestrians? Really? And no, this isn't "junior-developer grade software routine." They also don't want the car slamming on its brakes in the middle of traffic because a plastic bag blew by in front of the car.

Please, tell me about all the cars right now that avoid hitting pedestrians and bicycles and wheel chairs. If impact immenent (7th grade algebra) then stop.

What's your point? You're saying you could apply 7th grade algebra to this problem and make these cars considerably safer, but that the people working on it now just don't bother? Because they're evil? Or what?

I don't know what to say.

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#362

Post by everforward »

nobody9999 wrote: post #267
tsimionescu wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not accepting connections is not enough to be protected on the internet. A connection is just a special case of an incoming packet, any incoming packet is potentially malicious, even if the source IP:Port are ones you initiated a connection with. For example, most web-based malware is downloaded from connections you initiated.

>Not accepting connections is not enough to be protected on the internet. Where is the requirement (or even a good reason) that a vehicle be connected to the internet ? Which is the same question to be asked about ovens, toilets and a raft of other stuff too. I'd say "none."

It makes more sense for self-driving cars. If they get confused and just stop or pull over, you can have a technician remote in and drive it back to a depot or just get it unstuck.

If you're running them as a taxi service (which I think all the major self-driving companies except Tesla are), you need a way to get stats on the fleet and to direct a car to go pick someone up.

As of now, taxi services seem to be the focus of the self-driving industry because the LIDAR hardware (among a couple other things) is too pricey for consumers to justify owning. That's going to require some way to communicate with the cars. Cellular data seems a reasonable way to do that. I don't see a remarkable advantage over building their own boutique network of transmitters just to say they aren't technically on the internet.

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#363

Post by cf141q5325 »

nobody9999 wrote: post #358
cf141q5325 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely agree, however that likely means no self driving car for either of us for the given reason. Unless you are planing on weekly trips to the mechanic?

>Unless you are planing on weekly trips to the mechanic? What? To install nightly builds? I think not. I wouldn't put software into production (or even beta) that required weekly updates. And that's just for software to make a website or other app go, with no risk of injury or death. Why would anyone want to be driven around in a vehicle by software that's so buggy it needs weekly updates? How often do you update the…

I think you massively overestimate the code quality in automotive. Weekly might be a hyperbole, but from what i gathered from friends in the industry, the situation is as abysmal as everywhere else. I dont have any hopes that this will somehow get better with more complex software. Would love to be wrong here though

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#364

Post by Dylan16807 »

nobody9999 wrote: post #359
Dylan16807 wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you put millions of cars on local networks with significant range you'll get tons of untargeted hacking. If they don't have significant range then they don't solve the problem.

>If you put millions of cars on local networks with significant range you'll get tons of untargeted hacking. Right. Which is another reason not to allow access to the "make it go" software unless you have physical access and authorization.

A valid opinion, but not what I'm trying to argue for/against. I'm saying that if that remote access is your goal anyway, internet vs. not-internet doesn't feel like it has a big safety impact.

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#365

Post by shkkmo »

ben_w wrote: post #296
shkkmo wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> self-driving vehicles will allow people to commute while asleep or doing their hobbies This doesn't eliminate the traffic issues and energy consumption associated with long commutes. Self-driving cars are a substitute for the efficiency benefits of density. If anything, the expansion of remote work has just pushed the housing crisis into more housing markets.

> This doesn't eliminate the traffic issues and energy consumption associated with long commutes. How are traffic issues relevant to housing costs when no person is wasting time in the driver seat?

There is a limit to how long a commute can grow before it becomes untenable a part of a daily routine. Being able to do other things while commuting increases acceptable commute time, but does not elimant this limit.

Traffic can greatly extend commuting times and thus is directly relevant.

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#366

Post by shkkmo »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #282
shkkmo wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> self-driving vehicles will allow people to commute while asleep or doing their hobbies This doesn't eliminate the traffic issues and energy consumption associated with long commutes. Self-driving cars are a substitute for the efficiency benefits of density. If anything, the expansion of remote work has just pushed the housing crisis into more housing markets.

> pushed the housing crisis into more housing markets. FWIW I prefer density but isn’t this good? The reality of yesterday was too few zip codes with too much demand and not enough good will to increase supply. Instead we now have a lot more zip codes that can make decentralized decisions about building more housing. Hopefully they vote for more development and use it as a way to stimulate jobs in their local constru…

The new zipcodes face the same economic incentives to restrict supply. Property owners want to see their holdings increase in value and generally have more political power. I don't see any reason why the new hot markets are going to do anything different from the old hot markets. Perhaps some will, but renters and potential homeowners will get priced out of more markets

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#367

Post by ben_w »

shkkmo wrote: post #365
ben_w wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This doesn't eliminate the traffic issues and energy consumption associated with long commutes. How are traffic issues relevant to housing costs when no person is wasting time in the driver seat?

There is a limit to how long a commute can grow before it becomes untenable a part of a daily routine. Being able to do other things while commuting increases acceptable commute time, but does not elimant this limit. Traffic can greatly extend commuting times and thus is directly relevant.

If you can sleep in the car while it’s moving, it’s potentially adding up to 8 hours per day to your acceptable commute duration.

(And that’s separate to having a self driving RV, which also radically changes the home marketplace)

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#368

Post by shadowgovt »

nobody9999 wrote: post #360
TillE wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a weird, awkward solution to a problem which is far better solved cryptographically (eg, by paired SSL certs).

>This is a weird, awkward solution to a problem which is far better solved cryptographically (eg, by paired SSL certs). Sure, client/server certificates are great. But as soon as there's a BGP hiccup/attack, a fire at the relevant data center, a moron with a backhoe, among other eventualities, you're screwed. Autonomous vehicles (as well as those with drivers) need to be, as the name says, autonomous. Not dependent o…

Then how will they know about changes to road conditions?

They could know about it the way humans do: get stuck in traffic or stuck at a road closure and just burn time waiting for the issue to correct itself.

But wireless radio communications allows us to do so much better.

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#369

Post by pizza »

walkhour wrote: post #30
pizza wrote: post #7

Reading between the lines here this just makes me think that the regulator has become captured by the industry. This is like removing human control on an autonomous Russian roulette revolver that shoots to the side if it detects a person in front of the barrel, then praying for the best.

Driving is already a Russian roulette right? If autonomous vehicles are safer than human drivers as advertised the barrel would just have more capacity.

I'm assuming a couple things here, but

1. isn't a steering wheel the only plausible failsafe control for somebody supervising these experimental machines? Not sure what other control interface would be better in life-or-death instants/moments, plus any driver can carry over their preexisting skills in that situation. If better emergency controls than steering wheels exist, fine, I guess.

2. Isn't the question not

    safety(autonomous vehicle) > safety(human driver)
but rather

    safety(autonomous vehicle + human control fail-safe) > safety(autonomous vehicle alone)
Just don't understand why, on the face of it, the law is being changed in a way that I guess to me personally implies trials without common-sense-interface human intervention controls is legal?
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