Woh, An article that correctly identify machine learning as a sub-field of AI.
Driverless cars are stuck in a jam
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Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam
#22The article misses an important point. It’s not only a problem of technology, it’s also a problem of risk acceptance. While we accept to be killed by our own mistakes at the wheel, society (we) will not accept that a machine makes the same, even if the failure rate is on average /better/. This is the fundamental issue Elon Musk has. The driverless bar for safety is way higher than very clever driver assistance or eve…
> The driverless bar for safety is way higher than very clever driver assistance or even rocket science.
I agree. This isn't about beating the national safety average, which includes drunk driving accidents, inclement weather, motorcycles, old cars and unwieldy trucks. It's about providing a safer alternative in scenarios where you have no other. And, it probably needs to be affordable too.
There is a lot of other low-hanging fruit to which we apply vision technology (like early cancer detection!), it's too bad investors are climbing over each other to throw money down the long, narrow corridor that is self driving.
Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam
#23Maybe we should focus on finding a way to ... clone our brain inside of mechanical box. I know plenty of ethical considerations there, but a human with all the life skills of a human would be a perfect AI and not need the normal learning that focus ML brings w/ it. Imagine if they just clone a driving instructor's brain, and placed copies of that inside the cars...
Imagine being given immortality but you have to work a day job as a car and you don't get time off ever.
I know..but you could have time off... I mean you're not driving 24/7...maybe when not needed for transport you live in VR space.
Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam
#24The most pertinent point here being that although collecting lots of self driving car data is easy, the tail and unexpected events that you care about are surprisingly rare. And many of these events can also be entirely new (never seen before). Current AI SOTA techniques simply require too much data and cannot reason well enough to solve this. Leaving Musk aside, amongst those who are serious about self driving cars,…
I agree LIDAR is necessary. The goal is not to achieve perfection, just demonstrably more safe than an average driver . I'm curious how we will evaluate average driver . Clearly, including drunk driving accidents in the mix is not a helpful metric for safety-conscious drivers.
”Clearly, including drunk driving accidents in the mix is not a helpful metric for safety-conscious drivers.”
Sure it is. Even if you never drive drunk, there are still other drunk drivers on the road who are a danger to you.
But a self-driving AI, even an imperfect one, never drives drunk.
Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam
#25Maybe we should focus on finding a way to ... clone our brain inside of mechanical box. I know plenty of ethical considerations there, but a human with all the life skills of a human would be a perfect AI and not need the normal learning that focus ML brings w/ it. Imagine if they just clone a driving instructor's brain, and placed copies of that inside the cars...
This is not technically feasible for the foreseeable future and ethically fraught, but a fun thought experiment.
Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam
#26Does Waymo even use the kind of machine learning with neural networks that's currently en vogue?
Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree LIDAR is necessary. The goal is not to achieve perfection, just demonstrably more safe than an average driver . I'm curious how we will evaluate average driver . Clearly, including drunk driving accidents in the mix is not a helpful metric for safety-conscious drivers.
”Clearly, including drunk driving accidents in the mix is not a helpful metric for safety-conscious drivers.” Sure it is. Even if you never drive drunk, there are still other drunk drivers on the road who are a danger to you. But a self-driving AI, even an imperfect one, never drives drunk.
You're imagining a scenario where everyone has a self-driving car and completely ignoring cost and social factors.
Who among us would admit, "yes, I am a bad driver, I need this more expensive thing to take control in the event of an accident"? Very few is my guess. In 2019, people use these for convenience, not because they think the system is a better driver. I bet that's true even for Waymo's taxis.
As for getting drunk drivers to use self-driving, that's as easy as asking them to either stop drinking or not drive. Then there is the cost. I wouldn't be surprised if the unemployed drink and drive more often.
Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam
#28Maybe we should focus on finding a way to ... clone our brain inside of mechanical box. I know plenty of ethical considerations there, but a human with all the life skills of a human would be a perfect AI and not need the normal learning that focus ML brings w/ it. Imagine if they just clone a driving instructor's brain, and placed copies of that inside the cars...
Hey, SOMA is a game you would enjoy!
Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam
#29Maybe we should focus on finding a way to ... clone our brain inside of mechanical box. I know plenty of ethical considerations there, but a human with all the life skills of a human would be a perfect AI and not need the normal learning that focus ML brings w/ it. Imagine if they just clone a driving instructor's brain, and placed copies of that inside the cars...
Interfacing a brain sounds quite complicated. Instead, the mechanical box could just be a human body since we have over 1000s of years interfacing that with various vehicle controls.
We could probably harvest these fully functional units in less economically productive parts of the world, like Africa.
Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree LIDAR is necessary. The goal is not to achieve perfection, just demonstrably more safe than an average driver . I'm curious how we will evaluate average driver . Clearly, including drunk driving accidents in the mix is not a helpful metric for safety-conscious drivers.
”Clearly, including drunk driving accidents in the mix is not a helpful metric for safety-conscious drivers.” Sure it is. Even if you never drive drunk, there are still other drunk drivers on the road who are a danger to you. But a self-driving AI, even an imperfect one, never drives drunk.
In utilitarian terms, self-driving cars just need to be better than the drivers they replace. (Or even stronger: not much worse, because the added convenience is worth something.) Ie we should start to replace the worst drivers already.
In practice, the target seems to be not just the average driver, but the best human driver (or at least the 99%th percentile.) Given the trajectory of improvement we often see with AI, surpassing the average human and surpassing all humans shouldn't be too far apart.