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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

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Passenger safety concerns? If anyone would be able to stop an autonomous vehicle, it may be not always in the passenger's best interest. Could be OK if the passenger has an override, though - if they decide to tell the car to not comply with a legitimate stop request, it should be treated as if they'd be driving themselves and refused to stop. And, obviously, emergency stop should initiate stopping, but the vehicle s…

Even while unmanned it could be exploited. A robo-taxi's competitor could hit the emergency stop on any vehicles they see driving empty.

The point is that would be illegal and prosecuted. A competitor could also shoot them with guns but we don't worry about that, don't we?

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

#122
post #100
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I wouldn't be willing to bet my life on any self-driving car doing either of those things.

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

#123

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

Don't they already have a kill switch in the fact that they have the authority to stop vehicles? Or us the scary thought that it would be software/hardware and therefore insecure?

The insecurity is an issue, sure, but also just the fact you are turning over a crucial human activity to be far more strictly regulated. A "no fly lists" could be extended to "no drive lists" for instance; turning off the cars that don't pay vehicle registration, etc.

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

#124
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Doesn't seem fair to expect self driving vehicles to perform a task that humans can't. That is literally the sales pitch. They're supposed to be better at driving than humans. And that actually means all of it, not just lane-keeping on well marked brightly lit highways.

> They're supposed to be better at driving than humans. And that actually means all of it

Why? Couldn't it be "better at driving than humans" by reducing the most common errors (lapses in attention), while performing about the same as humans in less common situations (cop impersonators)?

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

#125

[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?

Don't be a fool. You know what I mean. Medicines and self driving cars can cause irreperable damage on a larger scale than a shoe does.

You sound like you would be first in line to give a pregnant woman Thalidomide too and that was considered "safe and effective" as well until it wasn't.

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

#126
The fact that the NHTSA allows these "beta" self driving vehicles is an affront to their mandate. Sorry but I don't beta test self driving cars, medicines, and other things that can cause bodily harm on a wonton.

Thalidomide was considered safe and effective for pregnant women until it wasn't. You want to be a guinea pig, be my guest and while you're at it, go ahead and install alpha builds for your BE infrastructure.

Edit: the fact that this was down voted speaks volumes to me about how people view safety. Sad!

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

#127
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,…

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.

How do people distinguish that? A person is likely to fall for a fake police officer and fake police car

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

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In basically every example you gave, you still have to stop until people move though. The result is the same, despite everything else. The only one that's a bit iffy is if you're being carjacked, is a bit of an exception. Legitimacy isn't really the problem, it's the circumstance of a human being in front of your car that prevents you from moving forward, and beyond getting out of your car and talking to them, or jus…

Those were two examples, but they're not exhaustive. Traffic direction can (and often does) happen without someone blocking the vehicle. In the case of an illegitimate request, a human driver might question the request and take a different action instead. Are you being directed to run a red light? If you judge that someone is maliciously asking you to do so, you probably will choose to remain still instead. Are you b…

Okay, so your point was more about the specific directions being given, than the presence of a person in the road. Overall I agree.

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

#129
post #100
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

You first!

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

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

I'd obey such traffic commands from just about anybody in plain street clothes, unless they looked obviously crazy or if I was in part of the world where car jacking is common. At the very least I'd stop and ask them what was up. Maybe there is some dangerous condition ahead and they're trying to warn me. Does the computerized car understand the meaning of the words "Turn back because the bridge is out" ?

I miswrote, my meaning wasn’t that I would stop for nobody, but that I wouldn’t stop for just anybody in just any situation.

Essentially the same that you said.

This is something that people are very good at judging but software isn’t.

I’m trying to say that until we have figured out AGI, autonomous cars driving among people are very dangerous.

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