Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program • Hacker News Board

Re: Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program

#231

Post by 05 » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 6:16 PM UTC

stevesimmons wrote: post #190

spacehome wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently we're losing a million lives a year (about a 9/11 per day) to auto accidents. I think there's a serious argument that it's ethical to push autonomous driving onto the road before they're safer than humans if that would help them debug the software faster and advance to superhuman safety levels even a day sooner.

So you're volunteering to be an unpredictable pedestrian or cyclist around large numbers of early-stage driverless cars? Put your ethics into practice! The rationale response for individual cities is to say: "Do your risky testing elsewhere, thank you very much. You may come back here once you are as safe as our average driver."

The rational response is to try passing legislation that prevents companies like Uber from (ever?) testing on public roads while allowing responsible companies like Cruise and Waymo a way to prove their competence and be allowed to test/operate.

Re: Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program

#232

Post by CydeWeys » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 6:20 PM UTC

sureaboutthis wrote: post #216

CydeWeys wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article addresses your second point: "Indeed, it's entirely possible to imagine a self-driving car system that always follows the letter of the law—and hence never does anything that would lead to legal finding of fault—but is nevertheless way more dangerous than the average human driver. Indeed, such a system might behave a lot like Uber's cars do today." It doesn't matter if Uber makes cars that are technically…

That paragraph is opinion of the author of the article which is my complaint. And, again, your second paragraph is an issue I also have. That people are stating that Uber is a car manufacturer.

I'm not sure I understand your objection. If Uber's cars are killing people at a much higher rate than human drivers, then that's a huge problem. They shouldn't be allowed on the roads at all, as they'd vastly increase traffic deaths if widely used. Whether or not someone is at fault in a given accident only matters to the insurance company; that person is still dead. What is your counter-argument? That it doesn't matter if many more people die with Uber self-driving cars on the road so long as everyone who dies made a mistake?

And whether Uber makes the entire car or not isn't germane to the discussion. They are responsible for the safety of said cars, which is what we're discussing here.

Re: Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program

#233

Post by 05 » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 6:20 PM UTC

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #154

buildbot wrote: post #91

I don't understand how there isn't a non-ML based piece of code that looks at moving radar and lidar returns and preforms an emergency brake, light flash, horn, or dodge if that vector would intersect with any confidence. Even slowing down to 20MPH can turn a fatal accident into an injury.

What if it has nothing to do with ML? You see a point cloud that's moving toward your lane at a speed estimate of say 2 mph. If that's below the sensor noise threshold, you might classify the cloud as a stationary object on the other lane (say a stranded car). In that case, by the time you realize that this stationary object has somehow moved itself into your own lane, it is already too late.

Not how lidars work. At some point the cumulative movement of the object exceeds a threshold and you reclassify it as non-stationary. You don’t get velocities from LiDAR - only 3D point coordinates.

Re: Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program

#234

Post by 05 » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 6:27 PM UTC

toast0 wrote: post #175

ddeck wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is not that he wanted better software, it's that he appeared willing to compromise safety to get it faster in order to beat his competitors to market, as is clear from the remainder of that quote: "To get to that better software faster we should deploy the first 1000 cars asap. I don't understand why we are not doing that. Part of our team seems to be afraid to ship." And from another email: "the team is no…

The rest of the quote is much more powerful. It's pretty irresponsible to ship 1000 self driving cars onto public roads at this point. (Regardless of who is shipping them) On the other hand, redundant steering and braking seem like probable overengineering. Brakes are already somewhat redudnant (dual section master cylinders were common in the 70s and are almost certainly in any modern vehicle), and better software c…

So, dual action master cylinders are OK by you, but actuators are apparently so much more reliable you only need one of them? And the same goes for the control hardware and power supplies because you are ready to handle power loss in software? I hope you have common sense to stay away from engineering safety critical systems for the rest of your career..

Re: Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program

#235

Post by troupe » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 7:26 PM UTC

cmac2992 wrote: post #180

troupe wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do want to extrapolate from their data, it would be worth looking at the total number of accidents--not just fatalities. Insurance companies say people file an accident claim every 18 years on average. If the average miles someone drives each year is 12,000 miles, this means they get in an accident every 216,000 miles on average. If Uber drove 3 million miles, we should expect them to have been involved in abo…

You'd also need to account for disengagements. Some portion of all disengagements were likely to avoid accidents.

Good point. Although I think many of the disengagements are basically the car saying "I don't know what to do safely" and without a driver to take over it would simply pull over and stop.

Re: Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program

#236

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 7:47 PM UTC

spacehome wrote: post #210

Slartie wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to have SERIOUS evidence for the claim that autonomous driving will actually be safer than human driving one day to even attempt to make this argument of yours. "Faith in technology" is not "evidence"! If your faith is strong enough, you'll surely be welcome if you sign away all of your rights and serve as irrational traffic participant in a city where self-driving cars are tested. You could run through the…

I'm already doing it all day for human drivers to no benefit at all. I am pretty convinced that computers have the potential to outperform humans in this, but I'm not really interested in hashing out the debate here; the arguments have all been made more elegantly elsewhere. Though I don't know why you keep ascribing 'faith' to me. I never brought that dirty word up. I reasoned my way into my positions.

[deleted]

Re: Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program

#237

Post by toast0 » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 8:02 PM UTC

05 wrote: post #234

toast0 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rest of the quote is much more powerful. It's pretty irresponsible to ship 1000 self driving cars onto public roads at this point. (Regardless of who is shipping them) On the other hand, redundant steering and braking seem like probable overengineering. Brakes are already somewhat redudnant (dual section master cylinders were common in the 70s and are almost certainly in any modern vehicle), and better software c…

So, dual action master cylinders are OK by you, but actuators are apparently so much more reliable you only need one of them? And the same goes for the control hardware and power supplies because you are ready to handle power loss in software? I hope you have common sense to stay away from engineering safety critical systems for the rest of your career..

Dual (or triple? I don't know how many you want) actuators don't help very much if the software doesn't know how to activate them properly (as it seems is the case here).

You absolutely need a system to ensure a controlled stop in any type of critical failure in ability to control the system. Assuming you have that, it seems reasonable to regularly verify the controls are functional (jiggle the steering, modulate the throttle, gently tap the brakes) every so often, and rely on your controlled stop procedure in the event of failure.

I do have the common sense to avoid safety critical systems, thanks; however armchair engineering is a national sport.

Re: Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program

#238

Post by icc97 » Sat, Mar 24, 2018, 7:10 AM UTC

mrguyorama wrote: post #230

icc97 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an equivalent job to a train driver

Train drivers have immense amounts of regulation and systems in place to verify that they are paying attention and actually driving the train: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sifa

Yes exactly, we should be applying similar rules to the self-driving drivers.

Re: Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program

#239

Post by sureaboutthis » Sat, Mar 24, 2018, 10:15 AM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #232

sureaboutthis wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That paragraph is opinion of the author of the article which is my complaint. And, again, your second paragraph is an issue I also have. That people are stating that Uber is a car manufacturer.

I'm not sure I understand your objection. If Uber's cars are killing people at a much higher rate than human drivers, then that's a huge problem. They shouldn't be allowed on the roads at all, as they'd vastly increase traffic deaths if widely used. Whether or not someone is at fault in a given accident only matters to the insurance company; that person is still dead. What is your counter-argument? That it doesn't ma…

Your first paragraph, here, doesn't matter. He is stating opinion as if it were fact and what he said (not you now) isn't fact at all.

Your second paragraph emphasizes my point. You,too, are stating that Uber is a car manufacturer, in whole or in part. Does Uber manufacture any parts of this car at all? The impression the opinion piece gives is that Uber manufacturers cars.

Re: Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program

#240

Post by velobro » Sat, Mar 24, 2018, 4:43 PM UTC

superfrank wrote: post #39

matte_black wrote: post #10

Why don’t we require software engineers who work on self driving car software to go through licensing and certification. And then, if their code results in a death, they are liable and can have their license completely revoked, and they would be unable to work on self driving cars again.

- Expecting engineers to always write perfect code is insane. Mistakes happen. - If bad code makes it into production, that is a systemic failure not an individual one (Why didn't the bug get caught in code review, QA, etc.) - No one is going to want to work on a project where a single failure can taint their career. - What if I use a 3rd party lib and that is where the bug is. Who is at fault then? What if the code…

Structural engineers are liable if the building they design collapses. I don't see why software engineers in safety-critical fields should be any different.

"The engineers employed by Jack D. Gillum and Associates who had "approved" the final drawings were found culpable of gross negligence, misconduct and unprofessional conduct in the practice of engineering by the Missouri Board of Architects, Professional Engineers, and Land Surveyors. Even though they were acquitted of all crimes that they were initially charged with, they all lost their respective engineering licenses in the states of Missouri, Kansas and Texas and their membership with ASCE.[22] Although the company of Jack D. Gillum and Associates was discharged of criminal negligence, it lost its license to be an engineering firm." - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collap...