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Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash

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Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash

#181
post #37
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a human that drove into wet concrete: https://www.wlwt.com/article/car-drives-through-wet-concrete... I'm sure its not that uncommon just not publicized, people are terrible drivers.

Do terrible drivers drive as much as Cruise does? Terrible drivers at least eventually get better through practice. Having 100 poorer than average driving autonomous cars in the streets driving around 24x7 is a net worsening. Autonomous cars improve more slowly than humans do.

The statistics "per mile" have been out for a long time. At least for Waymo they are extremely good. What difference does it make that any specific car drives around 24x7?

Quick look up of current numbers - without double checking whether it's over the life of the program, or just the latest year, or what:

Waymo one crash per 1.26 million miles

American humans overall one per 484,000 miles or 552,983 miles depending on the yr or something.

Younger drivers, something like 3 times the average.

And that's when Waymo reports automatically while many human collisions don't need reporting.

> Autonomous cars improve more slowly than humans do

They can get buggy software updates and maps but otherwise I'll bet on the software.

Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ummm when you are driving and hear a EMT vehicle you as a driver have to immediately pull to the side and out of the way. Sounds like your giving the robot guinea pig AI car a pass when clearly it did not and will not act like a human does.

Safety is the first rule, yielding the right-of-way is second. This was not an emergency vehicle behind the Cruise car, it was an emergency vehicle entering an intersection against the signal (running the red). They are supposed to stop and proceed only once they verify the intersection is clear. Another example is when you are at a red light and an emergency vehicle comes up behind you with their lights & siren acti…

Why u giving this guinea pig robot car a pass ... how many other accidents need to happen for cruise to learn and perfect its algorithm... some of their lessons they learn will be at the hands of severely hurting someone or many ppl directly or indirectly.

Cruise hasn't been at this as long as Waymo nor are we seeing Waymo have such accidents .. seems they are just trying to kill it like Uber did and we see what happened there.

Overall I'm against tech bros trying to kill it and doing anything and all cost to win a market to the point it actually kills ppl. I think most ppl who have morals and aren't greedy )have skin in this robot car game) share this sentiment.

Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should try other signaling methods (radio?) for emergency vehicles that’s easier to process for computers. That may be end up being useful for human drivers too ultimately.

Why would we do that?

Because nowadays cars are computers on wheels with lots of sensors, so we don’t need to only rely on human ears and brains like we had to in 1950s.

I think modernizing traffic signals will end up making transportation more efficient and safer. (Just imagine knowing the timing of the next 5 traffic lights on your path.)

Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash

#184
post #17

> “Over one hundred people lose their lives every day on American roadways, and countless others are badly injured, Cruise said in a statement sent via email. I’m so tired of this angle being accepted at face value. Current driverless cars are not even capable of safely navigating situations that below-average human drivers rarely struggle with, like avoiding driving into clearly marked wet concrete, or not crashing…

> I’m so tired of this angle being accepted at face value. Current driverless cars are not even capable of safely navigating situations that below-average human drivers rarely struggle with, like avoiding driving into clearly marked wet concrete, or not crashing into an emergency vehicle that has its sirens and lights blazing. The incident was reported as the Cruise robotaxi being struck by an emergency vehicle. It s…

Yeah it sounds like the corner was blind and the Cruise was in the right lane and the Firetruck had crossed into the oncoming traffic lane and struck the cruise on the right side:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2023/08/18/cruise...

The title may sound a little bit inflammatory but emergency vehicles are usually found at fault when they enter a red light, even when they're running lights and sirens and have a collision. They don't get tickets for breaking the law, but they are often found civilly at fault for collisions that happen when they do. They're expected to slow and visually clear the intersection, and if they were using the oncoming lane and couldn't see cross traffic they should have been more cautious.

This happens all the time with humans. One of the many reasons why 2 or more vehicles are usually dispatched (although there's a few videos you can find on youtube of firetrucks from different engine companies responding to the same incident T-boning each other as well).

Waymo at least claims to do things much more correctly and like a human in this case:

> Waymo representatives believe their vehicle would have handled this situation. According to Waymo, “Waymo has developed various technologies to detect active emergency vehicles even if they are not in direct view. Like humans, our vehicles can hear sirens and reason about the direction, location, and motion of the active emergency vehicle, importantly including whether it is approaching or receding. When we hear sirens, our vehicle will slow and then depending on how the situation develops, we will either pull over or stop ahead of intersections where there might be crossing emergency vehicles, even if we have a green light. The system is designed to remain cautious and not enter an intersection if it is still reasoning whether the emergency vehicle is approaching the intersection based on what it is sensing.” However, it is fair to say that Cruise has said similar things about their own vehicles ability to detect emergency vehicles, and Waymo has not tested in this exact situation.

Cruise should still get punished over this, and I don't know if 50% reduction in vehicles is enough of a punishment or what it should be. Going "move fast, break things" on public streets to try to catch up to your competitor should definitely result in you losing more ground that you think you're gaining when you're busted for it, or else it isn't a deterrent.

Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash

#185
This is like cracking down on all e-cigarettes because some people got sick from for some crappy e-liquid, while regular cigarettes kill nearly half a million people a year without anyone batting an eye. Classic misdirection while ignoring the real problems.

Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash

#186
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it depends. To compare it back to the phone phreaker example, putting up a single cone that blocks something is roughly the equivalent of cutting a phone line. That is to say, probably not hacking. But what about when you add a level of complexity and creativity? Say, putting up a series of cones that trap the car in an endless circle?

I don't really think the semantics matter too much. Sure, call the circle of cones a hack. The point is, it's criminal & likely causes a degree of chaos well beyond a simple prank.

That did not seem to be the point of the original post that I responded to.

Specifically, it seemed to imply that anything that was criminal could not be hacking.

The legal status of something, seems completely orthogonal to hacking to me.

Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash

#187
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume most people aren't wealthy enough to do that, so the measure still reduces the number of cars on the road and the amount of petrol consumed. And the net effect is to transfer wealth from rich people to all the people involved in making cars. Sounds like a win to me.

I think I understand. You hate poor people.

Er, no, not in the least. Where do you get that from?

Maybe something along the following lines: 1. Everyone hates either rich people or poor people. 2. I didn't get outraged at one particular thing some rich people are alleged to have done, therefore I don't hate rich people. 3. Therefore I hate poor people. The only thing wrong with this argument is every part of it, so I hope you mean something more reasonable. But what?

Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should we give the robots the same test, if they pass they get the drivers license? Seems like a low bar to me - for both robots and humans. We should instead raise the standards even higher for both!

I don't see why we wouldn't make a robotaxis pass driving exams. Also, I don't see how would this help. Most accidents are caused by licensed drivers

> Most accidents are caused by licensed drivers

Exactly, the point I’ve been trying to emphasize is:

The bar to become a driver in California is really LOW. We should push for the robots to be even better, but given the low bar for humans, I don’t see a good reason to stop them from training on public roads.

Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't put the cone on the bonnet for no reason. They do it because they know what the likely outcome will be. In a similar way, if you booby trap a vehicle such that it might surprise a human driver in some way whilst they are driving, causing them to potentially have an accident, the crime you are committing is not simply that you're surprising someone by tampering with their property, but you might be doing it…

> the crime you are committing is not simply that you're surprising someone by tampering with their property, but you might be doing it with a specific intent to cause an accident. this is nice rhetoric and all but doesn't apply at all in this situation nothing has been tampered with: the cone can be removed and having done so the vehicle will be indistinguishable from before it was placed (no property damage) the "a…

You'd be doing it so the vehicle won't move, and if the vehicle doesn't move it will cause traffic. If your argument is even slightly correct (that there would be any problem prosecuting such behavior) then it at least won't be in the future. Obviously trying to trick a car into causing traffic chaos is not going to be an accepted behavior.

Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash

#190
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really think the semantics matter too much. Sure, call the circle of cones a hack. The point is, it's criminal & likely causes a degree of chaos well beyond a simple prank.

That did not seem to be the point of the original post that I responded to. Specifically, it seemed to imply that anything that was criminal could not be hacking. The legal status of something, seems completely orthogonal to hacking to me.

That wasn't my point in the original post. Obviously overlap between those two things is possible.
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