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Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

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Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#401

Post by NetMageSCW »

autoexec wrote: post #290
dmix wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the better solution here then? Assuming there's hundreds or thousands of self-driving cars suddenly driving in environment without any traffic lights. In the pictures you can see six Waymo cars at a single intersection. Assuming some of them had passengers should they all try to turn at the intersection anyway, when their LIDAR says the lane is likely free and pull over to the side? Is that the safest option…

> What was the better solution here then? Just pulling over and getting out of the way really would help. There's no reason a human couldn't do the same safely. Not beta testing your cards on public roads would really be ideal. Especially without human drivers ready to take over.

Is pulling over possible in most cities?

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#402

Post by NetMageSCW »

wrsh07 wrote: post #278
dmix wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the better solution here then? Assuming there's hundreds or thousands of self-driving cars suddenly driving in environment without any traffic lights. In the pictures you can see six Waymo cars at a single intersection. Assuming some of them had passengers should they all try to turn at the intersection anyway, when their LIDAR says the lane is likely free and pull over to the side? Is that the safest option…

Tbh I'm surprised waymo didn't have remote monitors who could handle cars at intersections or safely pull to the side

Even if they did, did those monitors have power? And I’m sure they don’t have enough monitors for one to one with the cars.

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#403

Post by kedean »

smrtinsert wrote: post #355
smugma wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Failed pretty badly but no reported injuries or even accidents so not that badly. And if you’re Waymo, it’s a short-term reputation hit but great experience to learn from and improve.

Triggering some sort of extreme safety mode is considered failing now?

I'd say yes. The goal of a self-driving car is to emulate humans. If the car is panicking and reverting to "extreme safety mode" in situations where a normal human is going to be fine, then that's a failure.

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#404

Post by freejazz »

scoofy wrote: post #263
macintux wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Effectively they’ve turned any edge case into a potential city-wide problem and PR nightmare. One driver doesn’t know how to handle a power outage? It’s not news. Hundreds of automated vehicles all experience the same failure? National news.

I live in the affected neighborhood. There were hundreds of drivers that did not know how to handle a power outage... it was a minority of drivers, but it was a nontrivial, but nominally large number. I even saw a Muni bus blow through a blacked out intersection. The difference is the Waymos failed in a way that prevented potential injury , whereas the humans who failed, all fail in a way that would create potential…

> The difference is the Waymos failed in a way that prevented potential injury

No one was injured this time but that's a huge assumption on your part

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#405

Post by freejazz »

bsder wrote: post #238
wiml wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have a solution, it's written down in the traffic laws. If the signals fail, treat the intersection roughly like a four-way stop. Everybody learns this in drivers' ed. It's not obscure. If the cars can't follow traffic rules maybe they're not ready to be on the streets unsupervised.

The problem seems to be that the Waymo cars did exactly as you requested and treated the intersections like 4 way stops but kept getting displaced by more aggressive drivers who simply slowed and rolled. How many non-Waymo accidents happened at intersections during this time? I suspect more than zero given my experiences with other drivers when traffic lights go off. Apparently, Waymo's numbers are zero so humans are…

>The problem seems to be that the Waymo cars did exactly as you requested and treated the intersections like 4 way stops but kept getting displaced by more aggressive drivers who simply slowed and rolled.

So, you're saying Waymo can't handle a regular 4 way stop sign given how everyone else on the road drives? That's not a problem?

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#406

Post by kedean »

themafia wrote: post #175
MBCook wrote: post #93

From John Ripley on Mastodon: “Thought of the day, and I wish there were a way to get this to legislators: Come the next Big One earthquake, all of San Francisco’s emergency services will be blocked by Waymos.” I’m AMAZED they’re not designed to handle this better. This does indeed seem like a massive problem. “Oops we give up” right when things get the worst? How is this OK? I’ve been very impressed by Waymo’s more…

> Perhaps they haven’t fully thought through the ramifications of it though. There is a chorus of voices here on HN that have tried to do this openly, obviously, myself included. It seems to be almost universally derided by people who apparently assume that we're just trying to hurt a start up out of anti-environmental sentiment and jealousy. There are more ways to get "self-driving cars" wrong than there are to get…

> anti-environmental sentiment

I feel like self-driving cars are, pretty objectively, the single least environmentally friendly mass transit solution (more cars being made and using more rare-earth minerals to produce them, more cars being driven rather than increasing public transit usage). What's the argument that not liking self-driving cars is "anti-environmental"?

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#407

Post by KalMann »

smrtinsert wrote: post #355
smugma wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Failed pretty badly but no reported injuries or even accidents so not that badly. And if you’re Waymo, it’s a short-term reputation hit but great experience to learn from and improve.

Triggering some sort of extreme safety mode is considered failing now?

I think this was a failure. The gold standard should be that the if every human driver was replaced with an AI how well could the system function. This makes it look like things would be catastrophic. Thus, showing how humans continue to be much more versatile and capable than AI.

I suppose if you lower the standards for what you hope AI can accomplish it wouldn't be considered a failure.

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#408

Post by Dylan16807 »

scoofy wrote: post #369
Dylan16807 wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cars already know those are intersections with lights. I'm not talking about that part. Just the basic logic that you don't go through at speed unless there is a green (or yellow) light.

>The cars already know those are intersections with lights. That's not how any of this works. You can anthropomorphize all you like, but they don't "know" things. They're only able to predictably respond to their training data. A blackout scenario is not in the training data.

Even ignoring the observations we can make, the computers have maps programmed in. Yes they do know the locations of intersections, no training necessary.

And the usual setup of an autonomous car is an object recognition system feeding into a rules system. If the object recognition system says an object is there, and that object is there, that's good enough to call "knowing" for the purpose of talking about what the cars should do.

Or to phrase things entirely differently: Finding lights is one of the easy parts. It's basically a solved problem. Cutting your speed when there isn't a green or yellow light is table stakes. These cars earn 2 good boy points for that, and lose 30 for blocking the road.

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#409

Post by Dylan16807 »

anticensor wrote: post #383
Dylan16807 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all way red, that leads to exactly the problem in the story of blocking traffic. Lights out needs to be a stop sign.

Yes, it does lead to blocking the traffic but that is the only safe action to do in such an intersection; if an intersection has traffic lights, there's enough traffic that stop&give way is not a viable operation.

Very wrong. Dangerously wrong. Please don't block the road if you end up in an outage.

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#410

Post by prmoustache »

anticensor wrote: post #383
Dylan16807 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all way red, that leads to exactly the problem in the story of blocking traffic. Lights out needs to be a stop sign.

Yes, it does lead to blocking the traffic but that is the only safe action to do in such an intersection; if an intersection has traffic lights, there's enough traffic that stop&give way is not a viable operation.

Usually in that case you would make it a priority to the right /or left so that everyone only has to look at one side (besides the pedestrians) and in a very busy intersection people with common sense and education naturally do an alternance where you give way to every other car.

I don't know if waymos are programmed for that and it could very well be that there were so many pedestrian crossing it wouldn't apply it anyway.

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