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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

#281

Post by mattlondon »

rootusrootus wrote: post #101
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

Have you ever seen a firehose in action? It is commonly 2.5 inches in diameter, and my first reaction on seeing one is "that does not look like something I want to drive over." Completely separate from the fact that it is a firehose , if you put down a 2.5 inch diameter pipe on the road, I'd feel the same way about not driving over it.

They're 45mm. So like a coke can in diameter.

Speed bumps - which are everywhere - are allowed to be up to 100mm: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/1025/regulation/4/m....

I drive over speed bumps all the time and they're more than twice the height.

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

#282

Post by ohgodplsno »

Tv9m wrote: post #276
chongli wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no particular reason why advanced planning, modelling and pattern matching ability should need human-like goals. Because driving requires the ability to understand what other drivers are doing. It requires a theory of mind, which means understanding human goals.

> It requires a theory of mind, which means understanding human goals. Like chess?

Chess doesn't require understanding human goals if you're an AI, just running through the space of winning moves that your training encountered. An AI doesn't think "ah, rook to E4, knowing Kasparov, he will then castle and I can do X". It'll just go "lol I encountered 3 486 864 games with this particular board pattern and 49 652 lead to a victory lemme pick one for the lulz".

Chess is really just about searching through as much of the space as possible, and you can take a few seconds. And believe me, there's a whole lot more stupid behaviours you can encounter on the road while you have to react in less than a second.

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

#283

Post by ohgodplsno »

shrimpx wrote: post #178
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…

There should be a protocol where emergency workers can set up a geofence where cars are not allowed. Driverless cars can automatically avoid the geofence. Drivered cars can pop up an alert.

Of course, because emergency workers would love nothing more than arrive to a location, pull up their phone, open the Block-a-Car app, manually draw a fence with touch controls, then do it ten more times because no self driving constructor wanted to standardise on a single app. While, of course, a house is burning, a person is dying in the streets, etc.

No. The alert is the lights and sirens, and any driverless car unable to respond to that signal should be banned from roads. Emergency services have other things to do than draw a geofence so that Waymo can keep making money off of their collected data.

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

#284

Post by ohgodplsno »

pugworthy wrote: post #278
j16sdiz wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> someone impersonating a cop A RFID tag would do. If you prefer going dystopia, a chip implant.

AI being able to tell an "RFID" chip is real vs fake is not much different than telling whether someone in a fake cop outfit is real or not. And I mean given RFID is only detectable from inches to feet range, what's the point? And isn't under skin chip just RFID under the skin?

That would go great in the US. Try to tell a cop that you're going to come close and grab their arm to check their chip after they stopped you. I'm sure they'll take it super nicely.

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

#285

Post by fukawi2 »

heleninboodler wrote: post #218
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…

Interesting. A couple months ago, there were firefighters at my condo complex running a hose across the driveway into the building. I got past just before they ran the hose, but I stopped and asked them if they would be gone by the time I returned in about 30m, and they said "probably not, but if we're here you can just drive over the hose." That surprised me.

Our brigade has hose ramps so we can let people drive over... But they're pretty far down the list of priorities to pull off the truck unless we're just training.

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

#286

Post by fukawi2 »

dheera wrote: post #199
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…

Question, wouldn't it suffice to just put a couple traffic cones in front of it? AVs should be already trained to recognize and stop for those.

Traffic management is pretty low on the list of priorities for us at a going job.

Also, at least in my jurisdiction, traffic control is a police responsibility, and we're technically not allowed to do it anyway.

The preference is anyone who's not a fire-fighter just stays away, for their safety and ours.

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

#287

Post by fasterik »

runarberg wrote: post #259
fasterik wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to understand the worldview that leads to what you believe. As far as I can tell, you're assuming there is a supernatural aspect to the human mind. According to my worldview, humans are just robots built out of DNA, proteins, etc. The idea that machines couldn't do everything a human can do (and more) doesn't make any sense to me.

I’m sorry but I don’t have that world view. I must not have been clear enough (english is not my first language; and I’m not even super clear in my native language). I actually don’t believe in the superiority of the human mind, I think the word intelligence is actually a scientific distraction. Humans are remarkably—but not uniquely—adapted at communicating with each others and manipulating our environment for our b…

I may have read too much into your original post. I think I get what you're saying now.

We apply the concept of intelligence to other species, so I don't see why we couldn't apply it to machines. If people want to redefine intelligence so that humans stay on top, then they are wrong to do so. There is undeniably an objective component to it, even if there are many cultural factors at play as well. If you don't like the word "intelligence", replace it with "competence", "productivity", "performance", etc. and the same argument will apply.

You raised two other issues: the possibility of AGI and the utility of AGI.

I think we have good reasons to believe that it's possible. Three possible future scenarios: (1) we get to the point that we can simulate brains to a high degree of accuracy in software, (2) we get to the point that we can build artificial brains out of neurons made of silicon, (3) we get to the point that synthetic biology is advanced enough that we can engineer new kinds of intelligent organisms. These might be science fiction by today's standards, but they show that there is no issue with conceivability. As an aside, the human brain runs on relatively low power consumption and operations per second, so computational power isn't a bottleneck. We have enough compute, we just don't have the right algorithms yet.

As for the utility of AGI, I strongly disagree that there is no market for it. By definition, an AGI can do anything that a human can do. There is already a job market for humans. As soon as AGI can compete with humans in domains like management, engineering, scientific research, education, etc. I don't see why there won't be a huge economic incentive to adopt it.

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

#288

Post by Doxin »

gyudin wrote: post #274
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…

Or you can just put signs that road is closed in front of it so nobody has to second guess it. Seems like some cognitive bias that people have to have same knowledge as you and take an educated guess in a few seconds they notice hoses.

If you've got a drivers license you should be able to not drive over unexpected objects in the road.

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

#289

Post by chongli »

Tv9m wrote: post #276
chongli wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no particular reason why advanced planning, modelling and pattern matching ability should need human-like goals. Because driving requires the ability to understand what other drivers are doing. It requires a theory of mind, which means understanding human goals.

> It requires a theory of mind, which means understanding human goals. Like chess?

Chess AIs don't need to develop an understanding of the goal, they're hard-wired with the rules of the game and its goal-states.

As an experiment, try making a chess AI without explicitly giving it the rules of the game and see how it performs.

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

#290

Post by runarberg »

fasterik wrote: post #287
runarberg wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry but I don’t have that world view. I must not have been clear enough (english is not my first language; and I’m not even super clear in my native language). I actually don’t believe in the superiority of the human mind, I think the word intelligence is actually a scientific distraction. Humans are remarkably—but not uniquely—adapted at communicating with each others and manipulating our environment for our b…

I may have read too much into your original post. I think I get what you're saying now. We apply the concept of intelligence to other species, so I don't see why we couldn't apply it to machines. If people want to redefine intelligence so that humans stay on top, then they are wrong to do so. There is undeniably an objective component to it, even if there are many cultural factors at play as well. If you don't like t…

> As an aside, the human brain runs on relatively low power consumption and operations per second, so computational power isn't a bottleneck.

You hit the nail on the head here (pun intended). Brains (and other adoptive biochemical processes which reinforce behavior) are way more ingenious then to be described as a simple computer. It is not just neurons firing in patterns with synapses which can reinforce certain pathways. No, there is a whole biome in our bodies, from our guts, our muscles, through hormonal systems and yes, nervous system. Our behavior is also influenced by bacteria and other microorganisms that doesn’t even share our DNA (but sometimes actually interacts with our DNA). This complex machinery has evolved over millions of years, and I don’t think there is any way for us to simulate it. Even if we look outwards, our behavior is just as much influenced by each other as it is by our brains. So for a successful simulation you’d need to “raise” your machine in a similar manner, allowing interactions with a whole community (or more) that treats it as equal. Our brains are merely a tool which encodes this interaction as learned behavior. Just building a brain will miss all of that and give us a lousy model.

In statistics we learn that: “No models are correct, but some models are useful”. I’ve always taken this to mean that there is not always utility in a 100% accurate model. I think this applies for AGI. If we create a machine that can do everything that a human can, and better, what can we use it for? You claim increased competence, productivity, and performance, but we already have machines that do that. And we humans have found a way to work pretty well with those. We even have fully automatic vehicles that transport millions of people every day (e.g. in Vancouver B.C. and Copenhagen). It doesn’t need to be better then humans in everything, just accelerating and decelerating in the right places, it doesn’t need to know the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow, it will only need to know if something is blocking the tracks. Traditional statistical inference will make these systems better and cheaper, and they will benefit humanity, there is no need for them to have generalized knowledge beyond their immediate utility, so they will never be given one.

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