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Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program

arstechnica.com

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

#31

Post by PinguTS »

Stanleyc23 wrote: post #21
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #18

Are you suprised? Uber is a company that: * Flouted Taxi regulations * Living in legal gray zones in regards to contractors vs employees * Designed a system to avoid law enforcement * Performed shady tactics with its competitors * Illegally obtained the private medical records of a rape victim * Created a workplace where sexual harassment was routine * Illegally tested self-driving cars on public roads in California…

if they are at fault they should be punished, but you do realize that the expectation for self driving vehicles is not to eliminate all car related deaths, right? edit: wow this triggered some people. somehow 'if they are at fault they should be punished' got interpreted as 'they are not at fault and should not be punished'

Almost all current assitance systems in luxury cars, which are not design for automated driving, could have avoided this situation with activation of the emergency brake. But this car didn't even brake at all?

It will be interesting when Volvo pulls back from that relationship, because even the uptodate emergency brake assistent should have catched up. Except Uber as deactivated those in favor for their own technology (because it is superior).

EDIT: German Automotive Club did tested full sized cars in 2016, which means decaded old technology in IT. The results where that the Subaru Outback was the only one detecting persons in the dark. But was very poor with biclysts. https://www.adac.de/infotestrat/tests/assistenzsysteme/fussg...

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

#32

Post by PinguTS »

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.

We have this requirement, at least in Europe. There are even ISO standards to follow. The one related is ISO26262. But it seems, this does not apply to those permits issued for these cars by Uber.

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

#33

Post by mannykannot »

Stanleyc23 wrote: post #21
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #18

Are you suprised? Uber is a company that: * Flouted Taxi regulations * Living in legal gray zones in regards to contractors vs employees * Designed a system to avoid law enforcement * Performed shady tactics with its competitors * Illegally obtained the private medical records of a rape victim * Created a workplace where sexual harassment was routine * Illegally tested self-driving cars on public roads in California…

if they are at fault they should be punished, but you do realize that the expectation for self driving vehicles is not to eliminate all car related deaths, right? edit: wow this triggered some people. somehow 'if they are at fault they should be punished' got interpreted as 'they are not at fault and should not be punished'

That general statement does not give Uber a pass on this particular incident, any more than this particular incident casts aspersions on the autonomous vehicle industry as a whole.

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

#34

Post by CydeWeys »

sureaboutthis wrote: post #3

I have two problems with this article. 1) They make it appear that Uber is a car manufacturer. 2) Even though Uber has not been determined to be at fault, the author seems to want to make it that way anyway.

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 not at fault, if they're mowing over pedestrians at a rate significantly higher than human drivers then they should never be allowed on public roads. People mess up occasionally. The solution is not an instant death sentence administered by algorithm.

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

#35

Post by Silhouette »

TillE wrote: post #23
sureaboutthis wrote: post #3

I have two problems with this article. 1) They make it appear that Uber is a car manufacturer. 2) Even though Uber has not been determined to be at fault, the author seems to want to make it that way anyway.

Every engineer on this project at Uber knows very well that their car completely failed in one of its most basic expected functions. It's incredibly obvious, and a number of independent experts have said as much. I'd be fairly surprised if there's any real appetite at Uber to continue with this now. It was never anywhere near their core competency.

It was never anywhere near their core competency.

Maybe not directly, but is Uber's current business model sustainable without some form of self-driving technology replacing their human drivers?

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

#36

Post by harshbutfair »

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.

From many years developing safety critical software, I reckon culture and processes are more important than certification. There are various standards for developing safety systems in other industries (defence, aviation, etc) and these standards exist for a reason. Have Uber applied any standard for their automation software? Or equivalent development processes? "Move fast and break things" is fine for an app, but not fine for controlling a vehicle.

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

#37

Post by roenxi »

bobthepanda wrote: post #28
Stanleyc23 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if they are at fault they should be punished, but you do realize that the expectation for self driving vehicles is not to eliminate all car related deaths, right? edit: wow this triggered some people. somehow 'if they are at fault they should be punished' got interpreted as 'they are not at fault and should not be punished'

From the article: > But zooming out from the specifics of Herzberg's crash, the more fundamental point is this: conventional car crashes killed 37,461 in the United States in 2016, which works out to 1.18 deaths per 100 million miles driven. Uber announced that it had driven 2 million miles by December 2017 and is probably up to around 3 million miles today. If you do the math, that means that Uber's cars have killed…

You have a sample size of 1. Acknowledging that doesn't suddenly make the sample evidence of anything, good or bad :P.

Almost all the miles driven are going to be in near-ideal circumstances (daylight, no rain, good road surface, driver familiar with normal road traffic conditions and drives the route regularly). I have nearly no insight into the uber death, but I gather it happened at night. It could easily be that humans are also an order of magnitude more dangerous at night.

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

#39

Post by superfrank »

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 isn't buggy, but I'm using it in an unexpected way because of a miscommunication? If I am only allowed use code that I (or someone certified has written) development is going to move at a snails pace.

- What if I consult with an engineer who doesn't have a certification on a design decision and the failure is there, who is at fault?

- What if the best engineer on the project makes a mistake and ends up banned? Does he/she leave the project and take all their tribal knowledge with them, or are they still allowed to consult? If they can consult, what stops them from developing by proxy by telling other engineers what to write?

Not to be a dick, but this is an awful idea that would basically kill the self driving car.

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

#40

Post by spacehome »

Silhouette wrote: post #26
c06n wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Software should try to learn from human drivers Yeah, that doesn't work though. Basically because you would need to have an excellent situation representation to really understand the drivers' reactions to outside events. But that does not exist. Perception and situation representation are key to mastering the driving task, and they both differ greatly between humans and machines.

Basically because you would need to have an excellent situation representation to really understand the drivers' reactions to outside events. But that does not exist. This is the #1 reason I'm sceptical about self-driving cars becoming ubiquitous any time soon. Clearly they have potential advantages over a human driver in terms of not being tired or distracted, better sensors and better reaction times, but their judg…

You might perform well in those scenarios, but a lot of people in many parts of the world do not.
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