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Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

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Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#201

Post by jefftk »

usefulposter wrote: post #172
jjav wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's likely that a fully-attentive human driver would have done worse. We'd have to see video of the full scene to have a better judgement, but I wouldn't call it likely. The car reacted quickly once it saw the child. Is that enough? But most humans would have been aware of the big picture scenario much earlier. Are there muliple kids milling around on the sidewalk? Near a school? Is there a big truck/SUV parked th…

Precisely. Environmental context is not considered in Waymo's "peer-reviewed model" (I encourage reflexive commenters to first read it: https://waymo.com/safety/collision-avoidance-benchmarking ), only basic driver behavior and traffic signal timings. Note the weaselly "immediately detected the individual as soon as they began to emerge" in the puff piece from Waymo Comms. No indication that they intend to account fo…

How is "immediately detected the individual as soon as they began to emerge" worded weaselly?

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#202

Post by trollbridge »

hiddencost wrote: post #124
pmontra wrote: post #103

Who is legally responsible in case a Waymo hits a pedestrian? If I hit somebody, it's me in front of a judge. In the case of Waymo?

Are you thinking of civil liability or criminal liability? Waymo is liable in a civil sense and pays whatever monetary amount is negotiated or awarded. For a criminal case, some kind of willful negligence would have to be shown. That can pierce corporate veils. But as a result Waymo is being extremely careful to follow the law and establish processes which shield their employees from negligence claims.

Waymo is going to make sure they are never criminally liable for anything, and even if they were, a criminal case against a corporation just ends up being a modest fine.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#203

Post by jsrozner »

So many tech lovers defending waymo.

If you drive a car, you have a responsibility to do it safely. The fact that I am usually better than the bottom 50% of drivers, or that I am better than a drunk driver does not mean that when I hit someone it's less bad. A car is a giant weapon. If you drive the weapon, you need to do it safely. Most people these days are incredibly inconsiderate - probably because there's little economic value in being considerate. The fact that lots of drivers suck doesn't mean that waymo gets a pass.

Waymos have definitely become more aggressive as they've been successful. They drive the speed limit down my local street. I see them and I think wtf that's too fast. It's one thing when there are no cars around. But if you've got cars or people around, the appropriate speed changes. Let's audit waymo. They certainly have an aggressiveness setting. Let's see the data on how it's changing. Let's see how safety buffers have decreased as they've changed the aggressiveness setting.

The real solution? Get rid of cars. Self-driving individually owned vehicles were always the wrong solution. Public transit and shared infra is always the right choice.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#204

Post by boh »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #2

From the Waymo blog... > the pedestrian suddenly entered the roadway from behind a tall SUV, moving directly into our vehicle's path. Our technology immediately detected the individual as soon as they began to emerge from behind the stopped vehicle. The Waymo Driver braked hard, reducing speed from approximately 17 mph to under 6 mph before contact was made. > Following contact, the pedestrian stood up immediately, w…

So the TechCrunch headline should be "Waymo hits child better than a human driver would"? Not sure if the details reflect how the general public actually interprets this story (see the actual TC headline for exhibit A).

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#205

Post by dragonwriter »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #54
Filligree wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Waymo hits a kid? Ban the tech immediately, obviously it needs more work. > Waymo hits a kid? Well if it was a human driver the kid might well have been dead rather than bruised. These can be true at the same time. Waymo is held to a significantly higher standard than human drivers.

> Waymo is held to a significantly higher standard than human drivers. They have to be, as a machine can not be held accountable for a decision.

Waymo is not a machine, it is a corporation, and corporations can, in fact be held accountable for decisions (and, perhaps more to the point, for defects in goods they manufacture, sell, distribute, and/or use to provide services.)

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#206

Post by trollbridge »

fortran77 wrote: post #189

I'm a big fan of Waymo and have enjoyed my Waymo rides. And I don't think Waymno did anything "bad" here. > The young pedestrian “suddenly entered the roadway from behind a tall SUV, moving directly into our vehicle’s path,” the company said in its blog post. Waymo said its vehicle “immediately detected the individual as soon as they began to emerge from behind the stopped vehicle.” BUT! As a human driver, I avoid dr…

Waymo will 100% go down a route human drivers avoid because it will have "less traffic".

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#207

Post by sowbug »

Archio wrote: post #187
alkonaut wrote: post #11

And before the argument "Self driving is acceptable so long as the accident/risk is lower than with human drivers" can I please get that out of the way: No it's not. Self driving needs to be orders of magnitude safer for us to acknowledge it. If they're merely as safe or slightly safer than humans we will never accept it. Becase humans have a "skin in the game". If you drive drunk, at least you're likely to be in the…

>We accept the risks with humans because those humans accept risk. It seems very strange to defend a system that is drastically less safe because when an accident happens, at least a human will be "liable". Does a human suffering consequences (paying a fine? losing their license? going to jail?) make an injury/death more acceptable, if it wouldn't have happened with a Waymo driver in the first place?

Even in terms of plain results, I'd say the consequences-based system isn't working so well if it's producing 40,000 US deaths annually.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#208

Post by emptybits »

asystole wrote: post #147
emptybits wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo hits you -> you seek relief from Waymo's insurance company. Waymo's insurance premium go up. Waymo can weather a LOT of that. Business is still good. Thus, poor financial feedback loop. No real skin in the game. John Smith hits you -> you seek relief from John's insurance company. John's insurance premium goes up. He can't afford that. Thus, effective financial feedback loop. Real skin in the game. NOW ... add…

>John Smith hits you -> you seek relief from John's insurance company. John's insurance premium goes up. He can't afford that. Thus, effective financial feedback loop. Real skin in the game. Ah great, so there's a lower chance of that specific John Smith hitting me again in the future!

Yes, that is the specific deterrence effect.

The general deterrence effect we observe in society is that punishment of one person has an effect on others who observe it, making them more cautious and less likely to offend.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#209

Post by trollbridge »

Archio wrote: post #187
alkonaut wrote: post #11

And before the argument "Self driving is acceptable so long as the accident/risk is lower than with human drivers" can I please get that out of the way: No it's not. Self driving needs to be orders of magnitude safer for us to acknowledge it. If they're merely as safe or slightly safer than humans we will never accept it. Becase humans have a "skin in the game". If you drive drunk, at least you're likely to be in the…

>We accept the risks with humans because those humans accept risk. It seems very strange to defend a system that is drastically less safe because when an accident happens, at least a human will be "liable". Does a human suffering consequences (paying a fine? losing their license? going to jail?) make an injury/death more acceptable, if it wouldn't have happened with a Waymo driver in the first place?

I think a very good reason to want to know who's liable is because Google has not exactly shown itself to enthusiastically accept responsibility for harm it causes, and there is no guarantee Waymo will continue to be safe in the future.

In fact, I could see Google working on a highly complex algorithm to figure out cost savings from reducing safety and balancing that against the cost of spending more on marketing and lobbyists. We will have zero leverage to do anything if Waymo gradually becomes more and more dangerous.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#210

Post by trollbridge »

trillic wrote: post #107
alkonaut wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ~17 deaths per 100K drivers per year. 40K+ fatalities overall. I also think one needs to remember those are _abysmal_ numbers, so while the current discourse is US centric (because that's where the companies and their testing is) I don't think it can be representative for the risks of driving in general. Naturally, robotaxis will benefit from better infra outside the US (e.g. better separation of pedestrians) but i…

It will also never get worse. This is the worst the algorithms from this point forward.

Has this been true of other Google products? They never get worse?
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