201–210 of 341 posts
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"Smoking, drinking and extreme sports" are not great comparisons because they only put yourself at risk (for the most part). Driving, on the other hand, can endanger other people's life on the road.
Second hand smoking puts others in risk too.
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yeah, just tell the autonomous 4000 pound missile that stopping is a low priority. i fear much of the enthusiasm behind self-driving cars is from people who understand neither driving, nor computer software, very well.
That feels like you're intentionally misinterpreting the suggestion. The implied solution is that a car would preferentially stop off to the side of the road, rather than the middle.
There are places where it takes some skill just to comply with an officer's request for you to pull over. Not everywhere is a bunch of standardized interstates.
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There are kinds of driving that are fun and already not allowed on the road. For example, racing, or rallying, or just going very very fast. There are private tracks where you can pay to go and do that. Or sometimes they close the public roads and put up crash barriers for a big race. But they don't let you mix up your desire to go 200 MPH with regular commuter traffic.
I never said anything about driving fast. I actually really enjoy my 45-60 minute commute to work, because controlling a car is just cool - and I get to listen to my favourite podcasts/music while I drive. It gives me a sense of satisfaction and of something well done when I reach my destination. Getting the car in the right gear, hearing the engine thrum - you don't need to be doing 100mph to enjoy that. But again,…
I find it odd the way people talk about moving through the levels sequentially without really acknowledging there's a massive phase change that happens somewhere between level two and four, where a self-driving car could easily be way more dangerous than the average human driver. That comes as soon as you have a situation where the automation has to be able to handle all foreseeable scenarios without failing because…
Imagine some drunk guy hops into his car in bad weather. He taps the auto-cruise button and then passes out. Snow, rain, construction, - something - hinders the ride somewhere along the way home. Car cannot process the issue correctly, and slows to a stop, alerting the driver. Driver, being sound asleep, cannot hear the annoying alert tone. Alert continues, and possibly after some time, alerts authorities of it's dis…
If you're going to look at your phone at a red, know the light timings or look at the transverse pedestrian crossing signal or transverse yellow light so you know how long you have.
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We will gain a new appreciation for the value of human decision making. A pretty big chunk of automobile collisions are directly attributable to poor human decision making. For example, nearly 1/3 of fatal collisions in the US involve a driver with a BAC of 0.08 or higher.
"For example, nearly 1/3 of fatal collisions in the US involve a driver with a BAC of 0.08 or higher." This is a flawed comparison because failing to update your software or keep your tires inflated or clean off your sensors would also be human decisions that could lead to adverse outcomes with self-driving cars. Non-driving-operation decisions like that are applicable to both regular and self-driving cars.
It's incredibly simple to remove humans from those decisions. Just have the self-driving code refuse to engage until the issue is resolved.
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But driving on non-closed roads means you are interacting with people around you. Smoking, drinking, extreme-sports don't necessitate putting others at risk.
Second hand smoke harms people. A lot of household violence is fueled by alcohol. Then of course we are all affected by cost of treatment of smokers/alcoholics/people harmed in sporting incidents. Don't know how the numbers compare to driving, but the point is that the author of the article maybe shouldn't authoritatively say what "we" need or don't need.
That's why many places in the world use regulation to ban smoking in areas where people gather (like bus stops, restaurants).
> A lot of household violence is fueled by alcohol.
Hence, again, lots of regulation, also lots of social programs aimed at mitigating the harm caused by alcohol.
You may argue whether too much or too little is done in each of those cases, but the problems are recognized and addressed.
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Imagine some drunk guy hops into his car in bad weather. He taps the auto-cruise button and then passes out. Snow, rain, construction, - something - hinders the ride somewhere along the way home. Car cannot process the issue correctly, and slows to a stop, alerting the driver. Driver, being sound asleep, cannot hear the annoying alert tone. Alert continues, and possibly after some time, alerts authorities of it's dis…
NVIDIA actually talks about this in their last series of talks. The car when planning the drive makes a determination of whether or not it expects driver assist and how much. Of course a drunk person could just check off the sure, I can drive for those sections and then pass out anyway.
If the car came to a situation that it needed human input then that human could be drunkenly slurring advice.
But I am failing to see a situation that the car wouldn't be able to figure out, but the human inside could figure out... I've been in situations where I didn't know what to do and had to wait for the emergency services to come and help.
When self driving cars are that smart the emergency services AI will just fire 30 or 40 drones towards the emergency and those will coordinate with the cars below to fix the situation.
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Not even that, but forget America for a second and think china. Overloaded roads, horrible traffic and pollution, chaos, immature driving culture with a much higher accident rate, parking as an extremely scarce commodity, ride sharing/taxis already very common, and, most importantly, an authoritarian government who can change the rules overnight. Driving actually doesn't suck that bad in the states, even in crowded c…
Good point, I admit having a very egocentric POV on the matter, I mostly picture things in Europe and US ... There are a lot of places elsewhere. That said, it's probable that EU and US will be the first markets to take off. Japan, China, India soon after. Also outside of cities, isolated places, if SD kits are affordable could enjoy regular refill.
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Ubers and transport trucks can do fixed routes, so that should be relatively easy to automate.
Driving a known "autonomous safe" route, or map region, and simply not driving if the conditions aren't ok (it's snowing, there is construction in the area so maps or lanes are poor etc) works. But that's basically taking the "mostly autonomous"-level driving, and just adapting either the environment and/or the restrictions/schedule/routes to that. Uber could probably also just have defensive systems that simply park…
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When a piece of software crashes out of its model space, it becomes infinitely stupid. A drunk driver, while impaired, retains a level of understanding of the situation but a program has nothing to fall back on. I suspect that accidents with automated driving, while rare, will tend to be more severe. Think train wrecks.
Not really. If something goes wrong, 99.9% of the time, the solution is to slam on the brakes, and maybe swerve a little to avoid an immediate obstacle. If a self driving car only does this, it will be a way better driver than a human. Talking about weird edge cases misses the point. Edge case = slam on the brakes.
For example, what if it's dense fast traffic (say, one car space between each car, 50mph) in random black ice conditions and sensors suddenly begin failing so the software no longer trusts is inputs? Based on recent good inputs, accelerating, swerving, or breaking are all dangerous, and based on the loss of "vision" continuing at current speed is dangerous. The safest thing to do might be to begin honking, flashing hazards, and slowing down very slowly, but could still be way riskier than just handing control to a human driver who (in this scenario) can still see.
I can think of tons of similar situations. I have a feeling a lot of folks who think it'll be so easy are people who have mainly experience driving in easy areas and conditions.
EDIT: I could have easily made the scenario way worse: the road is curvy, or random lanes are closing and reopening due to construction. Loss of visibility then means continuing straight has a high chance of causing a serious wreck quickly rather than maybe eventually