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Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

reuters.com

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Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#401
post #393
post #366

I'm really shocked at the trend in comments here. Yes, we get it. Fatalities will happen sometimes, they are unavoidable sometimes, and what matters in the long run is if we can achieve a significant overall reduction in fatalities. But my god, a person was just killed by a computer. Can't we have some compassion and humility? Let's, as a community, set the standard for how we will react to these events. Let's make s…

I find what might help those that quote statistics is to self-reflect and ask the question, how would you react if your father/mother/sister/son/daughter/etc was the victim? Would you care that statistically self-driving cars have killed less people than human drivers?

Yes. I'm in favour of safer drivers, robot or human.

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#402
post #366

I'm really shocked at the trend in comments here. Yes, we get it. Fatalities will happen sometimes, they are unavoidable sometimes, and what matters in the long run is if we can achieve a significant overall reduction in fatalities. But my god, a person was just killed by a computer. Can't we have some compassion and humility? Let's, as a community, set the standard for how we will react to these events. Let's make s…

> Can't we do better?

no. there's a reason our community has the reputation of being heartless. it's because it's true.

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#403
post #381

Self driving cars are one of the things where we absolutely cannot afford to do "move fast and break things". If there was any whiff of shortcutting, poeple need to go to jail and Uber should be bankrupted by penalties and lawsuits.

Devil's Advocate argument here, but have you read books on our space race in the 60s? Should NASA have been bankrupted by penalties and lawsuits when Apollo 1 had its accident?

If they were dropping rockets on people standing on street corners. Yes, 100%. Your example is different because it was deaths of people involved in the projects who knew there were risks and agreed to them.

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#404

I know this is a slightly insensitive question to ask right now, but assuming that what happened was that the car tried to turn right and the cyclist came from behind and crossed into its path[0]: Who would actually have been in the wrong? I cycle along paths like this from time to time myself, and I always assume that I should let a turning car pass in front of me. As soon as I see the turn signal I will either fall…

These things tend to be based on the factual evidence of the case, as well as local and state laws. Talk to your lawyer.

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#405
Hype cycles are beginning to cause loss of life. Self driving cars are being allowed to operate at a far faster rate than other transportation innovations would have. This is because of the enthusiasm around technology. We need to realize the difference between social media apps and steel.

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#406
post #97

The video says bicyclist and shows a bent bicycle. So pedestrian or bicyclist?

I've heard that police reports often refer to all non-drivers as "pedestrians", even if they were riding a bike (which I learned after a neighbor was killed while riding a bike). I don't know if this is legalese or police jargon, but either way you would hope a journalist who covers these things could translate.

That's dumb. The term means someone who is walking. "Per pedes" means "by foot".

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#407
post #366

I'm really shocked at the trend in comments here. Yes, we get it. Fatalities will happen sometimes, they are unavoidable sometimes, and what matters in the long run is if we can achieve a significant overall reduction in fatalities. But my god, a person was just killed by a computer. Can't we have some compassion and humility? Let's, as a community, set the standard for how we will react to these events. Let's make s…

What trend in the comments is bothering you? It's a little unclear from your comment.

The trend I'm seeing is to immediately defend self-driving cars based on "but if you look at it statistically I'm willing to bet this is better than human drivers".

It is as if HN users expect the news headline to be: "an event occurs which is statistically speaking non-anomalous".

If one doesn't feel we have enough data to draw conclusions yet, then sure, fine. But a person just died. This is a newsworthy story and it deserves our best attention and discussion, not repetition of something obvious ad nauseam.

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#408
post #393
post #366

I'm really shocked at the trend in comments here. Yes, we get it. Fatalities will happen sometimes, they are unavoidable sometimes, and what matters in the long run is if we can achieve a significant overall reduction in fatalities. But my god, a person was just killed by a computer. Can't we have some compassion and humility? Let's, as a community, set the standard for how we will react to these events. Let's make s…

I find what might help those that quote statistics is to self-reflect and ask the question, how would you react if your father/mother/sister/son/daughter/etc was the victim? Would you care that statistically self-driving cars have killed less people than human drivers?

Well, just because people react badly when confronted with personal tragedy doesn't mean you have to do the same when it's not applied to you.

For example it's clearly excusable to be angry / depressed / looking for someone to blame when a personal tragedy happens to you. But that doesn't mean you should replicate that behaviour when a tragedy happens to someone else. We should distance ourselves from subjects where we're emotionally compromised, not guide our decision by the example of emotionally compromised people.

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#409

The people leading the development should demonstrate that they can stop for pedestrians by personally jumping out in front of them on a closed test road. If they're not able to demonstrate this, they shouldn't be putting them on public roads.

Self driving cars are still subject to the laws of physics... unless you're going to dictate that self-driving cars never go above 15mph, I wouldn't advocate jumping in front of even a "perfect" self-driving car. Braking distance (without including any decision time) for a 15mph car is 11 ft, for a 30mph is 45 ft. Self driving cars won't change these limits. (well, they may be a little better than humans at maximizin…

Once upon a time when I was learning to drive, one of the exercises my instructor used was to put me in the passenger seat while he drove, and have me try to point out every person or vehicle capable of entering the lane he was driving in, as soon as I became aware of them. Every parked vehicle along the side of a road. Every vehicle approaching or waiting to enter an intersection. Every pedestrian standing by a crosswalk or even walking along the sidewalk adjacent to the traffic lane. Every bicycle. Every vehicle traveling the opposite direction on streets without a hard median. And every time I missed one, he would point and say "what about that car over there?" or "what about that person on the sidewalk?" He made me do this until I didn't miss any.

And then he started me on watching for suspicious gaps in the parked cards along the side that could indicate a loading bay or a driveway or an alley or a hidden intersection. And so on though multiple categories of collision hazards, and then verbally indicating them to him while I was driving.

And the reason for that exercise was to drive home the point that if there's a vehicle or a person that could get into my lane, it's my job as a defensive driver to be aware of that and be ready to react. Which includes making sure I could stop or avoid in time if I needed to.

I don't know how driving is taught now, but I would hope a self-driving system could at the very least match what my human driving instructor was capable of.

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#410
My understanding, from talking to someone who works for the NTSB, is that the software controlling autonomous vehicles is currently completely unregulated, and that companies like Uber, Tesla, etc. have refused to provide access to their software for external review.

Recently I've seen a lot of comments defending autonomous vehicles from a statistical standpoint, but even if these cars have the potential to be safer on average, it scares me to think that the software driving a car is less regulated than its airbags or seatbelts. Especially considering the auto-industry's tenancy to ignore safety issues without external pressure [0].

Is my information outdated? Have there been efforts to review or regulate autonomous driving software in the last year?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed

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