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Firefighters forced to smash window of driverless Cruise taxi to stop it

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Re: Firefighters forced to smash window of driverless Cruise taxi to stop it

#81

Post by rootusrootus »

defen wrote: post #23
mmcconnell1618 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just jump in front of the car which is supposed to stop and then your companions handle carjacking the immobilized vehicle. There are many ways to normally stop or trick an autonomous vehicle without needing a big red button to stop it. Spike strips are used by police to stop human driven vehicles all the time.

What about if someone triggers it when you're traveling 75 mph on the highway?

I.e. what if someone pulls in front of you on the highway and then stands on the brakes?

Re: Firefighters forced to smash window of driverless Cruise taxi to stop it

#82

Post by LarryMullins »

upwardbound wrote: post #45
jxf wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But how do we distinguish real emergency scenario from fake one? A car shouldn't make that call. It should err on the side of safety and assuming the emergency is real. When you see flashing lights on the highway coming up behind you, do you think "I bet that ambulance is faking it so they can get home faster", or do you just move over?

Agreed - faking an emergency is highly frowned upon and I'm betting it's a crime in most places. There's even a similarity with the following aspect of the Geneva Convention, which is that pretending to surrender is so harmful to norms that it is literally a war crime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfidy "In the context of war, perfidy is a form of deception in which one side promises to act in good faith (such as…

I saw a video showing perfidy committed by a Russian soldier in Ukraine. Several Russians were coming out of a building surrendering to some Ukrainian soldiers, when one of them came out with a gun and started shooting. All the Russians were killed in the subsequent firefight, because one of them ruined it for the rest. It may seem like a clever ruse in movies, but in real life it gets people killed.

Re: Firefighters forced to smash window of driverless Cruise taxi to stop it

#83

Post by [deleted] »

neuralRiot wrote: post #59
redtriumph wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like having support for interpreting human gestures will solve some of the problems. But how do we distinguish real emergency scenario from fake one? Such kinds of problems will only scale up as we apply L5 cars take on more public roads, but I wonder how long or what changes will have to be done in current road signs, critical city infra to support them.

One thing that is often overlooked is that software can only understand what it was trained to understand.

[deleted]

Re: Firefighters forced to smash window of driverless Cruise taxi to stop it

#84

Post by rootusrootus »

chrisco255 wrote: post #21
cuteboy19 wrote: post #3

So what is the solution? Let emergency services have a remote control STOP button? But it would have many implications for passengers too

This is not a serious solution but it would probably work: place a fake traffic light in the road in front of the hose.

I didn't see it mentioned in the article, but given they had time to break the window, my guess is that's more or less what they did -- without the light. Might take a little courage, but standing in front of the car should make it stop, yes? You'd have to stick around until another solution is found, of course.

Re: Firefighters forced to smash window of driverless Cruise taxi to stop it

#85

Post by tpmx »

thangalin wrote: post #69
wwweston wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, of all the threats I can think of, law enforcement being able to killswitch autopilot on my car is not even gonna make the top 100. Whether on the run for crimes or being pursued by sinister oppressors the automotive autopilot is not gonna be a key margin of liberty. And being able to HERF any vehicle dead is probably coming no matter what: https://boingboing.net/2018/04/30/zapguns-r-us.html On the other hand, I…

> On the other hand, I can actually see a lot of merit in autopilot killswitches for anybody, including law enforcement. Including thieves?

The human driver could still take command (I presume), so I don't see that as a relevant attack vector.

Re: Firefighters forced to smash window of driverless Cruise taxi to stop it

#86

Post by mindcrime »

btbuildem wrote: post #73
mindcrime wrote: post #2

Less anybody think "this is no big deal", let me assure you as a former firefighter, cars driving over fire hoses is a MAJOR deal. Whether the car is driven by a human or AI. And sadly, humans do this all too often anyway. FWIW, the reason(s) this is bad - if not obvious - include: - The hose can (and does) get snagged on the car's under-carriage, which can rip it away from a hydrant, or engine, or yank an attack lin…

Wouldn't even the sudden drop in pressure be dangerous to the crew manning the hose?

Under the right circumstances, yes. Basically there are many, many bad things that can happen if a car drives over a hose, and not very many good things.

Re: Firefighters forced to smash window of driverless Cruise taxi to stop it

#87

Post by colechristensen »

retrac wrote: post #12
mindcrime wrote: post #2

Less anybody think "this is no big deal", let me assure you as a former firefighter, cars driving over fire hoses is a MAJOR deal. Whether the car is driven by a human or AI. And sadly, humans do this all too often anyway. FWIW, the reason(s) this is bad - if not obvious - include: - The hose can (and does) get snagged on the car's under-carriage, which can rip it away from a hydrant, or engine, or yank an attack lin…

I'm slightly alarmed by the general scenario of a driverless vehicle approaching an emergency situation. A human-driven vehicle will respond to gestures from firefighters to go around, etc. And even most dull humans will have more situational awareness and flexibility than an AI is likely to, particularly as these sorts of scenarios are edge cases by definition. E.g. depending on your jurisdiction and the situation,…

> Software is not ready for that yet, I think.

It will never happen. Robots will never have the intelligence to manage dangerous situations in the open world, only in controlled environments. After a series of accidents passes the unforgivable threshold, certain levels of autonomous driving will be banned completely.

Re: Firefighters forced to smash window of driverless Cruise taxi to stop it

#88

Post by Animats »

The letter from various SF agencies to the state CPUC has more info.[1] Cruise vehicles stopping for some reason and tying up traffic is a headache. This happens reasonably often. Sometimes on streetcar tracks and in bus lanes, which has the MUNI people annoyed.

Apparently Waymo doesn't do this as much.

[1] https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-docume...

Re: Firefighters forced to smash window of driverless Cruise taxi to stop it

#89

Post by [deleted] »

thangalin wrote: post #69
wwweston wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, of all the threats I can think of, law enforcement being able to killswitch autopilot on my car is not even gonna make the top 100. Whether on the run for crimes or being pursued by sinister oppressors the automotive autopilot is not gonna be a key margin of liberty. And being able to HERF any vehicle dead is probably coming no matter what: https://boingboing.net/2018/04/30/zapguns-r-us.html On the other hand, I…

> On the other hand, I can actually see a lot of merit in autopilot killswitches for anybody, including law enforcement. Including thieves?

[deleted]

Re: Firefighters forced to smash window of driverless Cruise taxi to stop it

#90

Post by thereisnospork »

freitzkriesler wrote: post #49

[flagged]

>other things that can cause bodily harm.

So everything? I, for instance, recall a certain style of sketchers that had to be recalled because they caused bodily injury. Do you likewise demand (e.g.) independent and peer-reviewed studies before new footwear can be put on the market?

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