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S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

sfchronicle.com

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Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#141

Post by jstummbillig »

akira2501 wrote: post #137
jstummbillig wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem with automation is small problems have a tendency to combine into massive emergent problems once you start scaling your fleet up. Not in this case, no. Every driver has a small problem. Each ai driver is just another driver, replacing some driver. Unless the ai driver problem is not small but actually quite big, I don't see how automation economics would worsen the situation. On the contrary, them all b…

Except Humans are dynamic and the AI is pre-programmed. So Humans can _react_ to emergent conditions whereas AI is completely subsumed by it. There's a good hint here that when Waymo cars "break down" a remote Human operator takes over. If your view is correct, this could never work.

In light of whats happening right this moment with AI/GPTs, I am not sure if you are being ironic or not.

If so, well played.

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#142

Post by NickM »

dekhn wrote: post #115

"Skyrocket" is a word people use when they don't have the data to support their claim, but want to make it sound as extreme as possible. When I hear "skyrocket" I think "several orders of magnitude in a very short time". But the source of the quote with skyrocket, basically admits that they didn't have any quantitative evidence to support a massive change in incidents. Remember: reality is banal. Things are far bette…

When I hear "skyrocket" I think "several orders of magnitude in a very short time".

The article actually has quantitative data that shows reports of "incidents where driverless cars disrupt traffic, transit and emergency responders" rising by a couple orders of magnitude in a year.

Yeah, the city officials have to cover their asses and make disclaimers about what they can and cannot conclude, because all they know is that they're getting more reports of incidents; they don't have access to Waymo's data. But given that we know driverless car activity has increased substantially, it seems silly to assume that it must just be a random coincidence that people are now reporting correspondingly more problems.

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#143

Post by lanstin »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #67
reso wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need AGI for good self-driving because driving requires predicting the actions of other human drivers at an extremely high level. This is second-nature for humans so we barely notice that we are doing it, but it is extraordinarily difficult for non-humans.

This is overcome with super human sensing and reaction time and better visual angles. i.e. radar based deceleration to avoid accidents already helps many humans avoid collision. It'll help the robot too. The rest of driving is relatively simple, methodological, and slow.

But also ambiguous and from time to time requiring judgment. Should I let that dumb ass driver go next or pull around them? I agree it’s insane not to allow the automated driving use more sensors than humans have. I wish I had vision that can cut thru rain and glare.

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#145

Post by throwaway9274 »

dekhn wrote: post #115

"Skyrocket" is a word people use when they don't have the data to support their claim, but want to make it sound as extreme as possible. When I hear "skyrocket" I think "several orders of magnitude in a very short time". But the source of the quote with skyrocket, basically admits that they didn't have any quantitative evidence to support a massive change in incidents. Remember: reality is banal. Things are far bette…

Absolutely right. To situate in terms of recent events, there have been three stages of trying to delay / influence the California CPUC robotaxi expansion approval vote:

1. Tried a politician scare campaign. Failed because it was too transparent it was an attempted distraction from their terrible public safety record.

2. Tried coning and disabling the vehicles. Failed because it was too transparently astroturfed, legal liability.

3. Now attempting leaks of cherry-picked vanity metrics so massaged they can’t fairly be called “statistics” to friendly anti-tech local media.

Will fail because national and international media no longer trust our local journalists, and will investigate independently.

The cars work. The incident data meets the standards set forth by the state of California.

Local politicians need to find another anti-tech boogeyman. This one is too vital to the revitalization of SF.

I am not talking my book, have zero stake here.

It’s just saddening to watch a nascent technology finally start working well and then get kneecapped by political games.

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#146

Post by dekhn »

LispSporks22 wrote: post #139
dekhn wrote: post #115

"Skyrocket" is a word people use when they don't have the data to support their claim, but want to make it sound as extreme as possible. When I hear "skyrocket" I think "several orders of magnitude in a very short time". But the source of the quote with skyrocket, basically admits that they didn't have any quantitative evidence to support a massive change in incidents. Remember: reality is banal. Things are far bette…

I'm with ya normally, but literally a few paragraphs in they have the chart source: the TA, going from 3 to 91 "incidents" over a year. If you turn it on its side, it kinda looks like rocket blasting off.

That's not a rocket blasting off, it's a rocket failing to reach orbit by barely clearing the launch platform.

More importantly: that chart isn't normalized by miles driven. As the companies have been ramping up, you'd expect (under a random model) that incidents would go up.

It could also be explained by greater knowledge of SDCs, increased news coverage, and more awareness of how to report incidents.

More importantly, I wasn't considering the chart, I was considering what the source of the quote said:

Julia Friedlander, SFMTA’s senior manager of automated driving policy, told state regulators in late June that driverless taxi incidents began “skyrocketing” this year. Though city leaders suspect it coincides with a rise in driverless activity, Friedlander said the city can’t make definitive conclusions because it doesn’t have detailed data.

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#147

Post by lanstin »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #85
laweijfmvo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have similar experiences (as a pedestrian) crossing in front of Cruise cars, especially at 4-way stops when there aren't crosswalks explicitly drawn. It's odd because the cars are generally excruciatingly cautious, but for some reason as I'm crossing they seem to calculate exactly how fast they can take off such that they pass me right as I'm clear of their path -- whereas most drivers might wait for the pedestrian…

> whereas most drivers might wait for the pedestrian to reach the sidewalk before passing. You're joking right? No one wait for you to clear the street. Hell most driving start advancing when you're going to be clear by the time they make it to you. > What would happen if I "dropped" my wallet and turned around to pick it up? Same thing a human would; hit you or slam on the brakes. They'll just do it faster and harde…

Not in San Jose. A few drivers will only wait for you to cross their half but they are an asshole minority and at any rate are not aiming to minimize things.

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#148

Post by gruez »

NickM wrote: post #142
dekhn wrote: post #115

"Skyrocket" is a word people use when they don't have the data to support their claim, but want to make it sound as extreme as possible. When I hear "skyrocket" I think "several orders of magnitude in a very short time". But the source of the quote with skyrocket, basically admits that they didn't have any quantitative evidence to support a massive change in incidents. Remember: reality is banal. Things are far bette…

When I hear "skyrocket" I think "several orders of magnitude in a very short time". The article actually has quantitative data that shows reports of "incidents where driverless cars disrupt traffic, transit and emergency responders" rising by a couple orders of magnitude in a year. Yeah, the city officials have to cover their asses and make disclaimers about what they can and cannot conclude, because all they know is…

>"incidents where driverless cars disrupt traffic, transit and emergency responders" rising by a couple orders of magnitude in a year.

Right, but how much is that in absolute terms? If last year you had 0 incidents, and this year you had 1, that's an infinity% increase.

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#149

Post by reaperducer »

abeppu wrote: post #101
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #30

>Cruise and Waymo say city officials have mischaracterized their safety track records. Their driverless taxis, the companies say, have lower collision rates than human drivers and public transit. This is comparing the mean driverless incident rate to the mean human driver incident rate. This is disingenuous, since a small minority of human drivers cause the vast majority of incidents, thereby severely inflating the m…

I think a key disconnect is that the 'incidents' being complained of most are not collisions, but they can still be disruptive, and indeed dangerous. Suppose one were to just install brightly painted immobile bollards on streets, and insist they were "driving" just very very slowly. They wouldn't hit anyone. They wouldn't kill anyone. They would piss everyone off. This disconnect is repeatedly part of where this conv…

I've certainly seen cases where self-driving cars behaved in a way that I would consider reckless if a human was at the wheel, but were not collisions, did not result in injury, and I expect will not form part of any statistics reported to any government body

A few weeks ago I saw one blow a red light. Nobody hurt or killed, so it wasn't reported to any responsible agency. It might not have even been tallied by the company, if the car thought there wasn't a problem. But its action was clearly unsafe.

It's hard to get a grip on the problem when the data is so faulty.

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#150

Post by fishtoaster »

DragonStrength wrote: post #14

I left SF a year ago but had Cruise and Waymo cars in my neighborhood constantly. They were a total nuisance. They'd jerk towards pedestrians in crosswalks leading to this uncomfortable standoff where no one in the neighborhood would ever step in front of one. I'd wager any stats here are way lower than real incidences as I was nearly hit multiple times and never got to the "report it" stage as there are so many barr…

For what it's worth, my own anecdata is the opposite. My neighborhood (alamo square / wester addition) is rife with Cruise cars and I usually pass 2-3 every night while walking my dog for 30 minutes. They've been, without fail, polite and normal "drivers." I've not felt any concern walking in front of them in crosswalks or biking alongside them when leaving the neighborhood.
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