Google Self-Driving Car Project Monthly Report [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Self-Driving Car Project Monthly Report [pdf]

#41

Post by gambiting » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 8:56 AM UTC

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #38

jakeogh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it interesting that people who relinquish their mobility to a computer will loose their driving skills? Maps nicely to other things.

Just because all of my needed math is done on a calculator doesn't mean I can no longer add.

Well that already sort of happens to pilots. They spend so much time on autopilot that they become less and less skilled at manual flying. I'm not saying that they are not busy in the cockpit,but there was a case where a plane crashed because the pilot didn't know how to regain control of the plane after the autopilot disengaged.

Re: Google Self-Driving Car Project Monthly Report [pdf]

#42

Post by amelius » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 9:22 AM UTC

albertzeyer wrote: post #39

amelius wrote: post #31

What I wonder most about: whenever the Car gets a minor software update, will they (be required to) do again 10,000 hours of test-driving?

I'm quite sure that those 10k hours are not with a single version but they are already being updated all the time. A human driver on the other hand similarly also updates his driving behavior throughout his life.

Software and humans are completely different. Humans are, in a way, very fault tolerant. In software, one erroneous line of code can literally crash the car. In a human, one stray neuron will probably don't do much harm.

Re: Google Self-Driving Car Project Monthly Report [pdf]

#43

Post by Mimu » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 9:31 AM UTC

DannoHung wrote: post #19

Have any of the AV teams said anything about testing in hazardous road conditions yet? Driving rain, thick fog, heavy snow, sleet, the like. Maybe the answer they'll give is, "Don't drive you dummy", but that's not really an acceptable solution for most people.

Given the fact that half of the miles done if with a human drivers I would say this is not ready for complete autonomy yet, at all.

Re: Google Self-Driving Car Project Monthly Report [pdf]

#44

Post by crottypeter » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 9:34 AM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #35

donkeyd wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been taught to always hold the break when at a stop light. If you get rear-ended, you won't roll into the intersection. Also, always hold the steering wheel, so you keep control if you get rear-ended.

I've always assumed you can press the brake post fact to prevent rolling into an intersection, which I assumed was better than absorbing a lot of G-force. Fundamentally, I think, if the impact is too strong for you to be able to react in time to brake before rolling too far, you would have rolled into the intersection despite holding the brake. Except it would be a skid not a roll. I could be wrong, obviously.

Your vehicle will accelerate less (fewer Gs) if your brakes are on.

Re: Google Self-Driving Car Project Monthly Report [pdf]

#45

Post by crottypeter » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 9:35 AM UTC

jfoster wrote: post #25

Jyaif wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DO hold the brake if you are about to be rear ended. It results in less acceleration, and you are less likely to be projected into an obstacle.

Doesn't this depend on what is in front of you? If you can safely move forward, wouldn't not holding the brake be better?

No. Rapid acceleration from being rear-ended causes whiplash. Having brakes on reduces the initial acceleration.

Re: Google Self-Driving Car Project Monthly Report [pdf]

#46

Post by michaelt » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 9:48 AM UTC

brownbat wrote: post #5

I'm fascinated by the accidents. The AV is stopped at a light. Someone rear-ends it. Minimal damage. Probably similar accidents are occurring every minute between human drivers, going unreported as the rule. AVs might one day even avoid this "victimization," if these events keep following a predictable pattern. AVs could exaggerate the gap, leave a precisely calibrated amount of extra space. When anticipating a rear…

  Does blame change though if there are ways the AI can 
  prevent this series of similar accidents, but they choose 
  not to? [...] Is it inconsistent to expect the AV to avoid 
  getting t-boned, but not expect it to avoid getting rear-
  ended?

While I was in college I worked on some wheeled robots that played a competitive ball game. We wanted to avoid collisions between robots, and to win the game.

One of the things we found was: If one team has great collision avoidance and the other team has no collision avoidance, the team without collision avoidance always wins. When there's a contest for the ball the team without collision avoidance just blasts in there, and when the team with collision avoidance back off to avoid a collision they lose the ball.

If autonomous cars were so good at avoiding accidents that you could merge aggressively and they'd always brake, and run red lights in front of them and they'd always stop, manual drivers might learn to do that.

Riding in a Google autonomous vehicle would be a pretty shitty experience if you knew you'd get four or five emergency stops in every journey when assholes decide to cut you up :)

Re: Google Self-Driving Car Project Monthly Report [pdf]

#47

Post by Swizec » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 9:53 AM UTC

crottypeter wrote: post #44

Swizec wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always assumed you can press the brake post fact to prevent rolling into an intersection, which I assumed was better than absorbing a lot of G-force. Fundamentally, I think, if the impact is too strong for you to be able to react in time to brake before rolling too far, you would have rolled into the intersection despite holding the brake. Except it would be a skid not a roll. I could be wrong, obviously.

Your vehicle will accelerate less (fewer Gs) if your brakes are on.

The energy is still going to have to go somewhere.

Some of it will go into the crumple zones, the rest will go into burning rubber and throwing passengers against their restraints.

The question is whether a person is better able to withstand being pushed from the back with rapid acceleration, or absorbing the energy of a collision.

I do not have an answer, but I'm very interested where I could find one.

You mention whiplash in another comment. Wouldn't you avoid most whiplash with a properly configured headrest?

Re: Google Self-Driving Car Project Monthly Report [pdf]

#48

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 10:13 AM UTC

Pfhreak wrote: post #6

The thing that really stands out here isn't that the accidents occurred (which is sort of amusing), but rather the excellent analytics the car produced. The car knew where it was, how long it was stopped, the conditions at the time of the accident, and the relative velocities of the vehicle that caused the accident. This is going to change the nature of automobile accidents entirely. The amount of data we'll be able…

[deleted]

Re: Google Self-Driving Car Project Monthly Report [pdf]

#49

Post by kriro » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 10:28 AM UTC

roel_v wrote: post #27

GauntletWizard wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorta unconvinced we'll actually see any benefit. Humans are notoriously picky about their privacy; The ability to get black-box data for insurance purposes has been around for years, but most people would rather not, for good reason, have their insurers poking around their driving habits. I expect some backlash against cars collecting this data on their driving neighbors. What if the self-driving car isn't invol…

All of this information can be derived from a dashcam, and they're ubiquitous today. And yes, in 10 years time there will be no such notion as 'private travel'. Between your phone's GSM/CDMA, bluetooth and wifi signals and dashcams, security and traffic cameras, there will be dozens of parties who monitor every move any person makes outside of their home in urban or suburban areas (be it by car, foot or bike). With d…

Dashcams are illegal in Germany due to data privacy laws. Pretty much the excact scenario a Google car would face.

Re: Google Self-Driving Car Project Monthly Report [pdf]

#50

Post by icebraining » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 10:34 AM UTC

roel_v wrote: post #27

GauntletWizard wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorta unconvinced we'll actually see any benefit. Humans are notoriously picky about their privacy; The ability to get black-box data for insurance purposes has been around for years, but most people would rather not, for good reason, have their insurers poking around their driving habits. I expect some backlash against cars collecting this data on their driving neighbors. What if the self-driving car isn't invol…

All of this information can be derived from a dashcam, and they're ubiquitous today. And yes, in 10 years time there will be no such notion as 'private travel'. Between your phone's GSM/CDMA, bluetooth and wifi signals and dashcams, security and traffic cameras, there will be dozens of parties who monitor every move any person makes outside of their home in urban or suburban areas (be it by car, foot or bike). With d…

All of this information can be derived from a dashcam, and they're ubiquitous today.

They are? Where? According to the SF Chronicle, "hardly anyone in the U.S. uses dash cams except police and commercial truck and taxi drivers."

Here in Europe, many countries don't even allow them (we have a different concept of "expectation of privacy" around here).