San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on • Hacker News Board

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#391

Post by Steltek » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 5:12 PM UTC

MathCodeLove wrote: post #348

Steltek wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL, cars don't go anywhere near 25mph in Boston. They'll average 15mph, if they're lucky. Even with ~70% of the right of way allocated to cars, there's still too many of them for the road to handle. I don't know what "efficiency" you think cars have over other modes but I'm not seeing it on my commute. More often than not, my bike is stuck behind cars (because the bike lane disappeared) rather than they're stuck beh…

15mph is still faster than walking speed. I'm not saying cars are the most optimally efficient mode of transportation, just that they are much more efficient that walking.

That's a completely useless comparison that applies almost no where in the world? You need to compare driving vs pervasive transit and bike networks. I doubt New Yorkers or Amsterdammers would accept your efficient car hypothesis.

In the few places with high 100% walking commutes, I don't see cars being more efficient either. Do you want every college student to drive from their dorm to class? How about poor countries without the money to maintain good road networks?

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#392

Post by dogman144 » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 5:14 PM UTC

ShakataGaNai wrote: post #340

bmitc wrote: post #2

I remain confused on how these cars are allowed on the road. Did they pass a driver's license check? Who's responsible? Who gets the ticket? In this instance, you can see that the car performed a dangerous maneuver by running from the cops, with its lights still off, and crossing an intersection, which is then spun by the company as finding a "safer" spot to pull over at. Even though, it found a spot essentially iden…

> Did they pass a driver's license check? Yes. That would be the AV permit that the cars operate under. Also as they are programmed to obey all road laws, it's exceedingly unlikely they will cause any moving infractions. > Who's responsible? Who gets the ticket? Cruise. Their name is on the AV permit, it's their insurance. > spot essentially identical to where it was. Before it was in a lane of traffic next to a park…

Isn't OP about a moving infraction it caused, despite its programming?

Arguing the probabilities of an outcome is an engineering-centric approach to selling these cars to the public, and it doesn't land well IMO/in this thread from others.

It makes a false equivalence b/t how we value human agency's role in outcomes, and something other-than-human. Most people seem to prefer the risk outcomes of something I decided, vs. a faceless control system.

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#393

Post by dntrkv » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 5:14 PM UTC

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #363

dntrkv wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s say autonomous cars, once fully implemented, are even 10% safer than existing drivers. And testing in real-world conditions, speeds up the implementation by even just a year. We would need about 3k deaths at the hands of the autonomous drivers before the trade off was no longer worth it. This is only considering the US. And based on very conservative estimates of 10% improvement and a reduction of only a year s…

You're trying to do math in a scenario where you have no real numbers. Of course you can pull some stuff out of your butt (+10%, 1 year) to say it's going to save lives but unless you can justify those numbers it's meaningless.

No fucking way? I thought my math was rock-solid!

The point is not the exact numbers. It’s to demonstrate that even if we do suffer accidents and deaths from testing self-driving cars on the road, the end result will be many more saved lives (just based on the fact of how many people die from traffic accidents today) Of course this hinges on many other factors to be true, but that’s the case with all kinds of technological advances.

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#394

Post by AlotOfReading » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 5:15 PM UTC

kadoban wrote: post #251

xadhominemx wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are all unwilling testers of every new teenage driver who hits the road.

That teenage driver goes through a training and certification process, and we have ways of stopping them from driving if they fuck up too badly. They also have liability for their actions. Most of those are lacking or at least inconsistent, for AI driving.

The vehicle manufacturer is licensed here, all safety operators involved are licensed, and the DMV will pull the operations permit or vehicle registrations if they fuck up too badly. This has already happened to pony.ai and Uber.

More consistency would be better, but it's a California bureaucracy. You get what you get.

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#395

Post by Veserv » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 5:18 PM UTC

carabiner wrote: post #287

jwr wrote: post #72

I am really worried by the fact that I am the unwilling tester in the Great Driverless Car Experiment. Tradition has it that when you load-test a new bridge, you put the architect underneath. I feel like this, except I didn't design those driverless cars, somebody else did. Being an experienced software engineer, my trust in the software in these cars is pretty low. And yet they are testing them on me, because I can…

You didn't design the aircraft that you fly on, which are incredibly computerized. Also the drugs that your doctor prescribes. Etc. You put your faith in myriad bureaucracies and trust networks that you have no hope of understanding. Driverless cars are just one more added to the list.

The difference is that airplane software standards are by far the most rigorous in the world and so rigorous that most software developers are shocked at the level of rigor employed where as driverless cars have exactly zero software standards with respect to their safety or fitness for purpose. Comparing the processes in play is a outrageously fundamental category error; the systems have standards that are like 6 orders of magnitude apart.

As a example, just look at the 737 MAX, a airplane viewed as a literal deathtrap and a complete indictment of airplane software development, which had 2 crashes in 400,000 flights. At a average flight distance of ~500 miles, the 737 MAX, a airplane literally multiple orders of magnitude worse than any other and a complete failure of the approval process, only resulted in 1 fatality per 100 million person-miles. That is safer than the driving average of 1.1 fatalities per 100 million person-miles. What is viewed as by far the most atrocious outcome in the airplane sector, a system literally hundreds or thousands of times more dangerous than the average, is above average in the car sector; that is how far the gap is.

And this is ignoring driverless car software which is being developed to even lower standards than regular car software and which has no actual independent quality requirements. In contrast, far more lives are at risk with respect to driverless cars, so they should be developed to standards probably around 1000x better than airplane software which puts them around 0.0001% of the way there to a acceptable level of quality even if the software was already as reliable as regular car software.

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#396

Post by nkingsy » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 5:18 PM UTC

AlotOfReading wrote: post #336

nkingsy wrote: post #279

Just my anecdote, saw a cruise car trying to turn left from the middle lane on Franklin. Came to a complete stop, bringing traffic to a halt, and waited for the cars on its left to clear out, including anyone who went around, then cautiously moved into the left lane and turned. Some kind of rude, selfish programming I’d be yelling at a person for.

The intention is for the car to be a very boring, unremarkable driver. This sort of behavior has been noted before and most incidents were thought to have been fixed by a merge ~6 months ago, but there can always be missed scenarios/interactions. Was this more recent?

Yes this was march 29th, 12am ish 15 ish blocks south of Lombard

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#397

Post by Arnt » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 5:19 PM UTC

dont__panic wrote: post #361

Arnt wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two human drivers passed me today in a street where passing me was unconditionally forbidden. In that street no car may pass any bicycle, ever, and there's giant signage. Are you suggesting that we have consistent, reliable ways to prevent those two from driving again?

That is certainly the idea behind traffic policing, license points, etc. All you need is police who enforce the laws that already exist.

If I were to send the police a 30-second film showing someone overtaking me illegally, it's near certain that nothing would happen. Unless someone were harmed.

If, however, I were to send the certification authority a film of a driverless car doing the same, my guess is that the vendor would be required to investigate and solve that, even if the film were just a single incident and noone harmed. I base that guess on the authority's past behaviour.

Speaking as someone who's often in harm's way, I find the possibility of getting rid of conscious rule violations very attractive, even if that doesn't affect the number or effect of software bugs at all.

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#398

Post by matthewdgreen » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

MathCodeLove wrote: post #359

matthewdgreen wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is entirely reasonable to push for a (much) higher standard of police accountability. The problem is not that all police are bad and out of control, it's that whenever these incidents occur the leadership and police unions institutionally push back forcefully on accountability. This institutional pushback is what makes this into a systemic problem that needs to be addressed.

Sure I agree, that is reasonable. Many people try to make the argument that all/most police are bad and out of control, which is what I refute.

Organizational leadership really matters. Imagine being a law-abiding person who joins an organization that's run by organized crime. Most of your colleagues are decent law-abiding people, but a few are thugs. And when those thugs hurt people, leadership pours all its resources into supporting and shielding them from consequences. When you (a law-abiding employee) try to report a thug for misbehavior, your leadership supports the thug over you or even drums you out of the organization.

Do you think this would be a sustainable organization? Should the general population look at a given representative and think "90% probability this is a good person" or should they think "10% probability this person is a violent thug who can hurt or kill me with impunity, and in any group of ten reps one might try to kill me and the others will look the other way?" What is the right way to engage with an organization like that? And over time is this organization going to reform itself, or is it increasingly going to attract bad people and drive away the decent ones?

There's a lot at stake here. Recent anti-accountability political activism by police leadership and union bosses is really scary and counterproductive stuff even if most cops are fundamentally decent.

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#399

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 5:21 PM UTC

jwr wrote: post #72

I am really worried by the fact that I am the unwilling tester in the Great Driverless Car Experiment. Tradition has it that when you load-test a new bridge, you put the architect underneath. I feel like this, except I didn't design those driverless cars, somebody else did. Being an experienced software engineer, my trust in the software in these cars is pretty low. And yet they are testing them on me, because I can…

[deleted]

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#400

Post by nkingsy » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 5:22 PM UTC

MisterTea wrote: post #296

nkingsy wrote: post #279

Just my anecdote, saw a cruise car trying to turn left from the middle lane on Franklin. Came to a complete stop, bringing traffic to a halt, and waited for the cars on its left to clear out, including anyone who went around, then cautiously moved into the left lane and turned. Some kind of rude, selfish programming I’d be yelling at a person for.

> Some kind of rude, selfish programming I’d be yelling at a person for. Sounds like an inexperienced or incompetent driver who lacks confidence. Basically, the kind of driver that shouldn't be on the road.

Rereading my comment yeah that’s harsh. Not trying to promote road rage though it is kind of fun to generally be loud from the safety of your car when no one can hear you.