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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

#91

Post by Swenrekcah »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #57
Swenrekcah wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then you have essentially enabled everyone to wave your car to a stop, which could be very convenient for certain types of people. I think the simple truth is that we are still a long long long time away from fully autonomous cars to be safely deployed anywhere except on very specific paths that are mostly closed off to everyone else. But they could be tremendously useful there, for instance driving buses or airp…

So this is currently possible today: I can walk out on any street today and redirect traffic. With or without my reflective vest, drivers will generally listen to me. And self-driving vehicles must as well. Note that when I am doing traffic direction with appropriate authority, most drivers will never have heard of the organization I'm a part of (a local CERT team), nor have any real way to vet the authority I have.…

>There's no definitive way to determine that someone is authorized to direct traffic, cars just need to obey them.

Exactly! But there still is a way. You don't obey anyone in any circumstances because that would be dangerous. People have a feeling for it, computers don't yet.

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

#92

Post by kube-system »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #57
Swenrekcah wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then you have essentially enabled everyone to wave your car to a stop, which could be very convenient for certain types of people. I think the simple truth is that we are still a long long long time away from fully autonomous cars to be safely deployed anywhere except on very specific paths that are mostly closed off to everyone else. But they could be tremendously useful there, for instance driving buses or airp…

So this is currently possible today: I can walk out on any street today and redirect traffic. With or without my reflective vest, drivers will generally listen to me. And self-driving vehicles must as well. Note that when I am doing traffic direction with appropriate authority, most drivers will never have heard of the organization I'm a part of (a local CERT team), nor have any real way to vet the authority I have.…

Human drivers are smart, and will generally judge your appearance, confidence, and context to determine whether or not your actions are legitimate. And you likely always pass these tests.

Imagine a teenager, dressed in street wear, who jumps into the middle of a street to stop traffic in a way that has no explanation given the scene, while their friends laugh on the sidewalk as they observe.

Or a group of men in masks stopping a car in an alley as their accomplices surround the vehicle.

Any human driver will recognize these scenarios as illegitimate. It isn't just the act of directing traffic that is judged in isolation.

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

#93

Post by cowmoo728 »

colechristensen wrote: post #87
retrac wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe I'm too optimistic about self driving but it seems that a fail-safe default of "upon encountering an active emergency situation, stop at a reasonable distance away" is good enough and better than what a significant minority of human drivers do.

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

#94

Post by LarryMullins »

kderbyma wrote: post #42
lflux wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefighters practically salivate at the possibility of smashing the windows of a car parked in front of a hydrant they need to access for supply. This isn't much different.

'Need to access'.....yes.....and your point? they salivate over saving lives! Stfu

I've talked to some that said it was one of the job perks. I don't blame them at all, it seems necessary and fun. It's one of those "instant justice" kind of things.

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

#95

Post by mattlondon »

ghaff wrote: post #55
mattlondon wrote: post #46

To be honest, as a human driver I'd not give a second thought to driving over a hose. Not saying that is right or not, just surprised this is apparently an issue worth smashing a car up for. I have no recollection of this being in the highway code for instance

Seriously? You'd just drive over a firehose because it was in your way?

Yeah I would.

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

#96

Post by tenpies »

alexfromapex wrote: post #47

This is going to slowly evolve into "law enforcement needs a killswitch" which is a scary thought

The really scary part is when the kill switch is in reference to your life rather than the car's movement. Like the theories about the death of Michael Hastings in 2013.

Hacks of cars were demonstrated in 2015 and documents from the CIA released by Wikileaks showed they have explored the idea as early as 2014[1], but at the time it was still presumed that killing someone by hacking their vehicle would be quite resource-extensive.

---

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/03/0...

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

#97

Post by rootusrootus »

charcircuit wrote: post #18

Did the city pay for the damages?

I was thinking more along the lines of 'who at Cruise got the ticket for running over a hose?' We need good answers for this question, because these days going after a big corporation is easier said than done. The laws need to be clear, the penalties appropriate, the recourse straightforward.

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

#98

Post by psychomugs »

bmitc wrote: post #71
buzzert wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really believe that with that attitude, we'll never be "ready" for driverless cars. > We are not curing cancer or feeding the world here, we are trying to make people get rich by eliminating the cost of labour for a human driver. No way this calculus should prioritize investors over human lives in any sane society. How about, we're trying to make transportation cheaper for everyone by eliminating the most expensive…

It's not an attitude. It's reality. Self-driving cars, if even attainable (which is questionable), don't solve any real problems besides bolstering the want for cars and thus more roads and highways, which are primary contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. That is, other than creating "cool" jobs and supporting get rich schemes and startups. If we cared about transportation and climate change, we'd be investing in…

I'm of this attitude as well, that the Jevon's paradox would kick in for cars again and lead to more use, like how ride-hailing apps worsened congestion.

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

#99

Post by cowmoo728 »

onion2k wrote: post #77
crazygringo wrote: post #24

Obviously autonomous vehicles need to be able to respond to officials directing traffic for any reason -- making way for ambulances, stopping for firefighters, being pulled over for a faulty headlight. Surely Cruise and Waymo have thought about this. Curious how it's supposed to work normally, and whether something about it failed in this case? How is an official supposed to get a moving autonomous vehicle to stop or…

Obviously autonomous vehicles need to be able to respond to officials directing traffic for any reason. In that case it would also need to tell the difference between a cop and someone impersonating a cop, or it's going to be really easy to mess with self-driving cars.

Doesn't seem fair to expect self driving vehicles to perform a task that humans can't. It's easy to impersonate a cop and interfere with traffic, and human drivers would be tricked too.

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

#100

Post by uses »

onion2k wrote: post #77
crazygringo wrote: post #24

Obviously autonomous vehicles need to be able to respond to officials directing traffic for any reason -- making way for ambulances, stopping for firefighters, being pulled over for a faulty headlight. Surely Cruise and Waymo have thought about this. Curious how it's supposed to work normally, and whether something about it failed in this case? How is an official supposed to get a moving autonomous vehicle to stop or…

Obviously autonomous vehicles need to be able to respond to officials directing traffic for any reason. In that case it would also need to tell the difference between a cop and someone impersonating a cop, or it's going to be really easy to mess with self-driving cars.

I mean you could just stand in front of a self-driving car and it'll probably stop rather than swerve around you, I imagine. There was an episode of revisionist history that discussed this a bit https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/revisionist-history/i-love-y...
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