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Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

theregister.com

111–120 of 212 posts

Re: Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

#111

> In a new class of attack on AI systems, troublemakers can carry out these environmental indirect prompt injection attacks to hijack decision-making processes. I have a coworker who brags about intentionally cutting off Waymos and robocars when he sees them on the road. He is "anti-clanker" and views it as civil disobedience to rise up against "machines taking over." Some mornings he comes in all hyped up talking ab…

This is a legitimate movement in my eyes. I don’t participate, but I see it as valid. This is reminiscent of the Luddite movement - a badly misunderstood movement of folks who were trying to secure labor rights guarantees in the face of automation and new tools threatening to kill large swaths of the workforce.

Thank you for the brief explanation of Luddites. It was enough to send me to wikipedia where I learned that what I thought I knew was extremely wrong. Until today I thought they were a religious sect who took their name from the biblical Lud.

Re: Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

#112

> In a new class of attack on AI systems, troublemakers can carry out these environmental indirect prompt injection attacks to hijack decision-making processes. I have a coworker who brags about intentionally cutting off Waymos and robocars when he sees them on the road. He is "anti-clanker" and views it as civil disobedience to rise up against "machines taking over." Some mornings he comes in all hyped up talking ab…

lmao

Re: Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

#113
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4 ways stops should be roundabouts, but the US is allergic to them for some reason.

There are 10,000+ roundabouts in the US and the number is growing rapidly. One could argue they may even be overused in certain areas (exhibit: Carmel, Indiana).

>There are 10,000+ roundabouts in the US

So about 0.003 roundabouts per square mile, or 1 roundabouts in 380 square miles

Re: Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of legacy intersections don’t have space for round abouts even in cites that embrace them.

So use a mini roundabout. They are common in the UK. It's just a painted circle with a slight hump, in the middle of a four-way junction. Vehicles can drive over it (and larger ones have to) but it indicates to everyone that they have to give way to traffic from the right and don't have to stop otherwise. They typically aren't big enough for multiple vehicles to be turning a corner at the same time. They fit anywhere…

This image from the OpenStreetMap Wiki seems to be the best match for the type of mini roundabout you're talking about:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Mini-rou...

It seems like most of the examples on the mini roundabout page‡ are larger mini roundabouts for some reason though

‡: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dmini_round...

Re: Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

#115
post #84
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your general luddite argument - preserve way-of-life of the small group at the expense of a larger group. In this particular case: for many people, Waymo provides a better service (clean, safer driving, etc..) than Uber or Lyft. This threatens livelihood of human Uber/Lyft drivers. If you sympathize with human Uber/Lyft drivers, and don't care about Waymo users, you want to make Waymo worse, hoping that the people wi…

If you are sitting in a waymo vehicle, and somebody cuts you off - do you even notice? They don't have them round here but my idea is that the vehicle itself is doing all the work, you can just continue reading your book, chat or get on something else with little awareness of the actual journey. Does the waymo curse and shake its little fist to alert you it was cut off?

I rode with Waymo a few times and was always aware of the traffic around us. No telling if that would last once the novelty wore off.

Re: Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Luddites were employed by textile manufacturers and destroyed machines to get better bargaining power in labor negotiations. They weren't indiscriminately targeting automation, they targeted machines that directly affected their work.

Which makes the comparison of modern anti-AI proponents (like myself) and Luddites even more apt and accurate.

Because life would be so much better if people still had to spin wool and weave cloth by hand, and grow their own food by digging in the earth with no tools.

Use whatever means necessary to stop powerful people from exploiting you and stealing the fruits of your labor. If that struggle involves monkeywrenching their machines, so be it.

But like any tool, the machines themselves can be used for good or evil. Breaking the machines shouldn't be an end in itself.

Re: Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

#117
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4 ways stops should be roundabouts, but the US is allergic to them for some reason.

The only places where a 4-way stop has room to make a roundabout are places where there is not enough traffic for it to matter either way. The biggest obstacle is that there are just too many 4-way stops in urban areas where there is no space left to make a roundabout, you would have to tear down buildings. I don't think that is a valid argument in that scenario.

> The only places where a 4-way stop has room to make a roundabout are places where there is not enough traffic for it to matter either way.

You have clearly never heard of a mini-roundabout.

They just work.

https://thumbsnap.com/sc/u7J6PdTJ.jpg

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a75806ae5274...

Re: Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

#118
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s an interesting question because the benefits of automation aren’t necessarily shared early on. If you can profitably sell a shirt for 10$ while everyone else needs to sell for 20$ there’s no reason to actually charge 10$ you might as well charge 19.95$ and sell just as many shirts for way more money. So if society is actually saving 5c/shirt while “losing” 9$ in labor per shirt. On net society could be worse off…

In regards to both the Luddites and the farmers, you seem to forget the most important factor. Food. In the case of the Luddites, it was a literal case of their children being threatened with starvation. "Livelihood" at the time was not fungible. The people affected could not just go apply at another industry. And there were no social services to help them eat during the transition period. As for the farmers, any gov…

[deleted]

Re: Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

#119
post #12

One year in my city they were installing 4-way stop signs everywhere based on some combination of "best practices" and "screeching Karens". Even the residents don't like them in a lot of places so over time people just turn the posts in the ground or remove them. Every now and the I'll GPS somewhere and there will be a phatom stop sign in the route and I chuckle to myself because it means the Google car drove through…

4-way stops are terrible in general. They train people to think "I stopped, now I can go", which is dangerous when someone confuses a normal stop for a 4-way stop. It also wastes a good bit of energy.

Four way stops are good, in my experience, at intersections with roughly equal (low) traffic load on both (two-lane) roads and relatively high pedestrian traffic. Like in a dense residential urban neighborhood between major commercial thoroughfares, side streets. Traffic is mostly people going to residences with people out and about walking. If it’s only a two way stop drivers will often not yield to pedestrians on the free flowing road.

Four way stops on intersecting four-lane roads are awful for the reason you stated.

To use Chicago as an example because I know it, typically major roads are spaced every four blocks (half mile) with smaller roads in between. The mid-point roads (two blocks from each major one) is often a little wider than the other two side streets on either side, and those intersecting mid-point roads usually have a four way stop while the two smaller ones will have stops signs where they cross a mid-point road but the mid-point road will not. You end up with a nice, overall hierarchy that generally works well.

Re: Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign

#120
post #25
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4-way stops are terrible in general. They train people to think "I stopped, now I can go", which is dangerous when someone confuses a normal stop for a 4-way stop. It also wastes a good bit of energy.

4 ways stops should be roundabouts, but the US is allergic to them for some reason.

At this point in time, why can't we do smart crossings? Like have some sensors and software to change lights based on real-time traffic conditions.
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