Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 240 posts

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#121

Post by capitainenemo »

google234123 wrote: post #95
capitainenemo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only because the garbage truck moved out of the way.

Which was double parked... Anyway, I dont think most human drivers would have driven in reverse in this situation either.

Double parking is extremely common for a garbage truck in that situation (picking up along a crowded road).

And yes, I absolutely would have checked my rear view mirror, then reversed (slowly).

Or tried to move over as much as possible to the right.

Or depending on the road and my position, U-turned and pulled in front of the garbage truck. Lots of options, blocking the firetruck not being high on the list.

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#122

Post by feoren »

anyfoo wrote: post #92
feoren wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> needs to have the required behavior programmed in explicitly This is missing the entire point of ML. ML is literally defined as not having to explicitly program responses in for every situation. Needing to pull over because a fire truck has told you it's coming your way in 2 minutes is pretty easy compared with some of those other "uncountably many" situations these cars need to deal with. > the autonomous machine…

> This is missing the entire point of ML. ML is literally defined as not having to explicitly program responses in for every situation. I suggest you look up the free lunch theorem of supervised learning. > A calculator absolutely "understands" arithmetic. I'm not sure how that's anything else than proving my point. Let's say a calculator "understands" arithmetic. It does not understand anything I would apply those c…

> A calculator is able to perform calculations, it does not understand any of the axioms, theorems, and uses around it.

It understands the axioms because they've been literally built into its tiny brain. It doesn't understand the uses of arithmetic because nobody programmed it to.

Can you provide me a non-vacuous definition of "understand" that doesn't rely on human consciousness being extra-special and magic?

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#123

Post by rglullis »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #106
rglullis wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are, we are not as dependent on it, and you can bet that the absolute majority of people could live on car-sharing and cab-hailing systems, which would mean that 99% of the "self-driving" problems would go away.

While I agree with you that car dependency is a serious problem in North America and I am also very critical of the obsession with self-driving, I don't think they are necessarily correlated with each other. In fact, one could argue that car-sharing and car-hailing are more amenable to self-driving than a market in which each individual is expected to own a car. I think self-driving is more established in North Ameri…

The question that most people seem to forget to ask: what is the societal benefit of having self-driving cars that could not be had by reducing car dependency in the first place?

"Roads will be safer"? Yes, they are safer already on cities with well-functioning public transit.

"Less drunk-driving"? Same idea: if teenagers can live in areas where cars are not a necessity, they won't be behind the wheel and still be able to meet their friends, go to a party, etc.

"Less space needed for parking slots if cars are FSD"? Also true if people are not car-dependent.

To me, self-driving makes sense for trucks on highway roads, not for city traffic. And even then, we could also apply the same idea and think "why not improve the rail infrastructure"?

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#124

Post by seanmcdirmid »

SllX wrote: post #25
tpmx wrote: post #17

> According to Cruise, which collects camera and sensor data from its testing vehicles, the fire truck was able to move forward approximately 25 seconds after it first encountered the autonomous vehicle.

Half a minute is a long time when you’re responding to an emergency.

In a similar situation (where having to back up is the only option), I don't think a human driver would have responded much faster. Of course, this was with human intervention also.

Odd that we are focusing on the autonomous car that had no choice but to back up and not the double parked garbage truck that induced the need to backup in the first place.

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#125

Post by anyfoo »

feoren wrote: post #115
bowsamic wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do driverless cars use ML in the decision making procedure? > A calculator absolutely "understands" arithmetic. That is absurd and obviously false

> That is absurd and obviously false It is actually "obviously true" unless you believe that human brains have a special metaphysical magic that makes them "more than just a system". That's literally the only alternative: human brains are magic and only humans are ever capable of "understanding". It's a vacuous definition of the word. Systems can understand things, which is good, because the human brain is nothing mo…

I did not claim it's about "metaphysical magic" that machines lack. But I do believe that humans usually have a very rich and multifaceted life outside of driving on a road, compared to cars, and are therefore able to integrate "training data" that cars are not. Unless your plan is to make them an active member of society.

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#126

Post by gkop »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #73
gkop wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this mentioned in the article, or do you have inside knowledge, or are you guessing? Edit: you are correct, flutas explained in sibling comment that it was alluded to in article. Thanks you both!

I'm just stating a common traffic law. If you're driving, and an emergency vehicle is coming at you with it's lights on, you yield.

Ah, well for what it's worth that is the reason that Cruise provided that their vehicle stopped in the travel lane in this instance.

I think it's important to know what the autonomous car was thinking.

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#127

Post by anyfoo »

feoren wrote: post #122
anyfoo wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is missing the entire point of ML. ML is literally defined as not having to explicitly program responses in for every situation. I suggest you look up the free lunch theorem of supervised learning. > A calculator absolutely "understands" arithmetic. I'm not sure how that's anything else than proving my point. Let's say a calculator "understands" arithmetic. It does not understand anything I would apply those c…

> A calculator is able to perform calculations, it does not understand any of the axioms, theorems, and uses around it. It understands the axioms because they've been literally built into its tiny brain. It doesn't understand the uses of arithmetic because nobody programmed it to. Can you provide me a non-vacuous definition of "understand" that doesn't rely on human consciousness being extra-special and magic?

> It understands the axioms because they've been literally built into its tiny brain.

No they have not. Do you know what an axiom is? Do you know how a calculator is implemented?

It’s not about metaphysics, it’s about the difference in the experience of a lifetime compared to a car on a road. „Training data“, if you like.

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#128

Post by dogecoinbase »

robbrown451 wrote: post #112
anyfoo wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems it would have a way of prioritizing such things. You are putting the cart before the horse. The problem is not in prioritization, the problem is in having the correct ontology to even get to the "prioritization" stage. Does the car know what a fruit stand is? Does it know what a gas pump is? Does it know how the fruit stand relates to the gas pump in "expected outcome when being hit by a car"? If you say "…

I would imagine the car has ways of identifying things that are specific hazards, such as a gas pump. Fruit stand is probably categorized as "other." "the problem is in having the correct ontology to even get to the "prioritization" stage." That part isn't done by the program, it is done by whoever enters the prioritization numbers. That is, someone, possibly a committee, can dial up the "avoid gas pumps" weighting r…

Sure, we'll just write down all the things there are in the world in order of how bad it is for a car to hit them.

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#129

Post by jstanley »

anyfoo wrote: post #127
feoren wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A calculator is able to perform calculations, it does not understand any of the axioms, theorems, and uses around it. It understands the axioms because they've been literally built into its tiny brain. It doesn't understand the uses of arithmetic because nobody programmed it to. Can you provide me a non-vacuous definition of "understand" that doesn't rely on human consciousness being extra-special and magic?

> It understands the axioms because they've been literally built into its tiny brain. No they have not. Do you know what an axiom is? Do you know how a calculator is implemented? It’s not about metaphysics, it’s about the difference in the experience of a lifetime compared to a car on a road. „Training data“, if you like.

I don't think it's a question of knowing what an axiom is or how a calculator is implemented. I think it's a question of disagreeing on what "understanding" means.

What does it mean to understand something? Obviously (to me and I presume to you) a calculator doesn't understand anything! It doesn't have the capacity for understanding. Obviously (according to, I presume, feoren and Dennett) "understanding" means something very different, and a calculator is perfectly capable of "understanding" arithmetic.

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#130

Post by seanmcdirmid »

capitainenemo wrote: post #121
google234123 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which was double parked... Anyway, I dont think most human drivers would have driven in reverse in this situation either.

Double parking is extremely common for a garbage truck in that situation (picking up along a crowded road). And yes, I absolutely would have checked my rear view mirror, then reversed (slowly). Or tried to move over as much as possible to the right. Or depending on the road and my position, U-turned and pulled in front of the garbage truck. Lots of options, blocking the firetruck not being high on the list.

You claim this, but have you ever been in that situation before? Backing up on a road with traffic is extremely dangerous, and I'm not sure I could do it while under the stress of an emergency vehicle situation. There was no room to U-turn (if there was, the fire truck would have been able to get through), and I'm guessing parked cars on the side of the road prevented any kind of "moving further to the right".
Post reply on HN